This past year, a family friend was diagnosed with cancer and received two positron emission tomography scans — one before treatment and one after. Both of those scans were initially denied as medically unnecessary. Fortunately, both scans were covered after her doctors pushed back but not everyone is as lucky. My friend’s story illustrates what many Americans struggle with in healthcare.
Americans have been told for years that the only way to make healthcare more affordable is to spend more government money and create more rules, but we all know this doesn’t work. Each year, we pay more in premiums, have higher deductibles, and find greater difficulty in getting the care we need. Our system has become a maze that seems nearly impossible to rein in or hold accountable. However, the solutions are surprisingly simple. Rather than funding a broken system, American households deserve policies that make the healthcare system easier to navigate and give them autonomy to find the best health coverage and care for their needs and budgets.
In 2025, the average family spent nearly $27,000 on employer-sponsored health insurance premiums. Medical costs increase faster than overall inflation, and wages have stagnated, making it harder to keep up with out-of-pocket spending. Prices keep climbing despite years of attempts to bring them down. The Affordable Care Act’s enhanced subsidies, which were the cause of the longest government shutdown, didn’t lower premiums but hid the true cost. While the enhanced subsidies were in effect, premiums continued to rise by 3.4% in 2023, 6% in 2024, and 7% in 2025.