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Former President Barack Obama is hitting the campaign trail this weekend in an attempt to shore up support for Democrats, Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., and Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., who are running for governor in their respective states.
Obama will join Spanberger at Old Dominion University in Norfolk in the morning before heading to Newark to stump for Sherrill at a get-out-the-vote rally later in the afternoon.
The former president is reprising his role as campaign closer as he remains the most widely recognized leader in the Democratic Party. This latest re-emergence, however, comes as the country reels from a protracted government shutdown over the last remaining piece of his legacy, the Affordable Care Act, more popularly known as “Obamacare.”
With Obamacare subsidies expiring in December, Democrats have made it clear they will not vote to reopen the government without extending the subsidies.
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Since its enactment, Obamacare has offered subsidies in the form of tax credits for health insurance premiums on plans purchased through the ACA’s exchanges based on enrollees’ income levels. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress enacted enhanced premium tax credits in 2021 that were extended by Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act through the end of 2025 – with the policy now caught up in the shutdown debate.
In a floor speech just a few days into the shutdown, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., proclaimed that “if these ACA premium tax credits aren’t extended, the average fifty-five-year-old couple making $85,000 a year would see their premiums not just double, but triple to $25,000 a year.”
“That is all Democrats want to fix. We are on the side of the people. The people know it and want it and need it,” said Schumer.
When former President Barack Obama signed the legislation into law in 2010, he promised it would “lower costs for families and for businesses and for the federal government, reducing our deficit by over $1T in the next two decades.”
Obama also promised that “ten years from now, people will look back and say, this was the right thing to do.”
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But now, over ten years later, Republicans argue Obamacare has done the opposite, lowering the quality of healthcare while increasing insurance premiums and the deficit.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told FOX Business, “Look at how much this is all costing us. Obamacare was sold on a lie. The costs have skyrocketed.”
“Obama promised you wouldn’t lose your doctor, well, you did. You wouldn’t lose your plan, you did. You were supposed to save $2,500 a family, that was a lie. You were supposed to save over a hundred million dollars of our federal budget,” said Scott.
About 24 million Americans are enrolled in health insurance plans and open enrollment for 2026 opens on Nov. 1, with insurers notifying members about increases in insurance premiums that are coming next year.
The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) estimates that health insurance premiums through the Obamacare exchanges are set to increase 26% on average in 2026. On state-operated ACA exchanges, the average benchmark (or second-lowest cost) silver tier premium that’s used to calculate the tax credit is set to rise 17%, whereas states using Healthcare.gov are rising 30% on average, according to KFF.
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The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finds extending the expiring premiums would increase the deficit by roughly $350 billion through 2035, while the Washington Post reports that average Obamacare premiums are set to rise 30% next year.
Thus, while Obama re-enters the political scene to boost Democrats, he may also have to defend his own legacy as the shutdown enters its second month, and critical federal agencies begin to buckle under the pressure of having to operate without funding.
Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser and Fox Business’ Grady Trimble and Eric Revell contributed to this report.
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