'Obamacare' wars heat up in 2024 race as Biden and Trump clash over subsidies

President Joe Biden on Tuesday called for extending a subsidy boost under the Affordable Care Act that is set to expire after 2025, underscoring one of the most immediate health care policy implications of the upcoming election.

The president boasted that he made the ACA — also known as "Obamacare" — “stronger than ever before” by signing into law enhanced subsidies under the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act. That has helped push ACA enrollment to an all-time high of 45 million people, according to government figures.

“I enacted tax credits to save an average of $800 per person per year, reducing health care premiums for millions of working families under the ACA. Those tax credits expire next year,” Biden said during a campaign event in North Carolina. “I’m calling on Congress to make that $800 expanded affordable health care tax credit permanent. Otherwise, millions of Americans with that coverage could lose that coverage.”

Whoever wins in November will have a major say on whether that funding is extended. Biden sees it as a legacy to protect. His Republican rival, Donald Trump, an avowed opponent of the ACA, has not discussed that funding or offered a health care alternative.

Asked how he would handle those subsidies, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday said only that he’s “running to make health care actually affordable, in addition to bringing down inflation, cutting taxes and reducing regulations to put more money back in the pockets of all Americans who have been robbed by Joe Biden’s disastrous economic policies.”

The ACA, signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010, includes tax subsidies for people up to 400% of the federal poverty level to obtain coverage. In