Mainers give Collins the bill for skyrocketing health insurance costs

November 20, 2025

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Maine health care advocates and people concerned about losing care visited Collins’ district offices in Augusta, Bangor, Biddeford, Caribou, Lewiston and Portland to urge her to vote yes on reinstating ACA tax credits.

Photos of the event: Susan Collins ACA Bill Delivery Event – November 2025

From Biddeford to Caribou, Mainers concerned about losing health care visited Sen. Susan Collins’ offices today to give her a bill for $100 million.

That amount is a low estimate of the amount Mainers’ health care costs will likely increase because Republicans in Congress failed to extend the enhanced premium tax credits (ePTCs) that have made purchasing health insurance possible for tens of thousands of Mainers.

They urged Sen. Collins to vote “yes” on reinstating ePTCs when the question comes before Congress (expected before the end of the year).

Carie Bernard (she/her), a self-employed health care provider in Portland, has a serious, genetic health condition and needs frequent MRIs, hearing tests, and neurology consults. Bernard has also had several major surgeries and is preparing for another in the next month.  

Bernard has been able to purchase insurance through coverME.gov using ePTCs. But without the credits, her insurance premium will rise in 2026 from about $250 to $1200 per month.

“With access to affordable health insurance, I can stay healthy, work, and contribute to my community,” Bernard says. “Without health insurance and regular access to affordable health care, the disease I have would kill me.”

Older Mainers in rural areas will be hit especially hard if the ePTCs aren’t reinstated for 2026. Allowing ePTCs to expire would increase premiums — especially for older adults in rural areas — by an average of 77%, with many people likely to drop coverage as a result.  

Megan Smith (she/her), a Maine People’s Alliance community organizer in northern Maine, says the expiring ePTCs are only part of the larger health care crisis that Republicans and Pres. Trump created.

“Because of the devastating cuts to Medicaid and other health care programs in the Republican federal budget, we’re already seeing maternity wards and primary care practices closing, with more rural hospitals at risk. Rural Mainers already have to drive too far and pay too much for health care – if we can get it at all. Having to pay so much more for insurance will mean that more people will go without, and more people will die. Sen. Collins has to understand that protecting our health care needs to be her first priority.”

Mainers will see their premiums increase an average of nearly 24% (4% higher than the national average) on the ACA individual marketplace, which has about 71,000 enrollees in Maine. Just the end of ePTCs would result in $42 million in lost federal funding for Maine, the loss of 500 jobs, and $6 million less per year in state and local tax revenue.

Republican leadership in the Senate committed to vote on reinstating ePTCs as a condition of ending the federal government shutdown earlier this month, but have not made any commitments beyond that. The Senate has two weeks of session days before the end of the year.

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With more than 32,000 members, MPA is the largest community organization in Maine, and one of the largest in the country. We work together on issues that include but are not limited to housing, care, climate change and environmental justice, health care access, racial justice, and immigrant rights.

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Contact: Nora Flaherty-Stanford, (207) 370-8314, [email protected]