Thousands of Hudson Valley Families Facing Higher Insurance Premiums Thanks to Rep. Mike Lawler’s Stubborn Inaction

While His Constituents Pleaded With Him For Months to Extend Health Care Tax Credits, Congressman Lawler Refused to Act Until It Was Too Late

HUDSON VALLEY, NEW YORK — Thanks to Congressman Mike Lawler’s stubbornness and complete lack of urgency when it came to extending the expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits at the end of last year, thousands of his own constituents are now facing the reality of sky-high insurance premiums amidst an already dire cost-of-living crisis. Even though the House of Representatives will vote tomorrow on renewing the tax credits, New Yorkers are already feeling the pain of higher costs due to Rep. Lawler’s inaction.

Hudson Valley residents spent months calling on their representative to support a three-year extension of the critical tax credits, but by the time Rep. Lawler finally caved to mounting pressure and reluctantly signed the House discharge petition, it was too little, too late. Over 140,000 New Yorkers are now being forced to pay hundreds of dollars more per month for their health insurance.

“Congressman Lawler has been patting himself on the back, trying to take credit, when all he did was the absolute bare minimum at the last possible second, and nothing was fixed,” said Karen R., a cancer survivor from Yorktown who relied on the tax credits to afford her health insurance premiums. “He signed the discharge petition only when he knew there was no chance of a vote being held before the tax credits expired. Now they’re gone, and thousands of households like mine in the Hudson Valley are trying to figure out how we’re going to get by. Those credits were a lifeline we depended on. Our lives are about to become even more difficult, as we’re forced to shoulder the burden of even higher health care costs amid an already unaffordable economy that our representative keeps voting to make worse. Mike Lawler needs to stop treating this like some political game and start actually caring about how this affects the lives of people in his district."

To learn more about Empire State Voices, please reach out to press@empirestatevoices.org

###
 

About Empire State Voices 

Empire State Voices (ESV) is a multi-year campaign dedicated to amplifying the voices of everyday working New Yorkers. ESV is fighting for economic policies that make life more affordable for constituents and holding members of Congress across the state accountable when they fail to do the same.