ICYMI: Constituents, Health Professionals Join Senator Markey in Boston to Highlight Impact of Rising Health Insurance Premiums on Massachusetts Communities

Watch: Senator Markey, Health Professionals, Constituents Decry Republican Health Care Shutdown

Boston (November 3, 2025) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), top Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Primary Health and Retirement Security Subcommittee, hosted a press conference outside of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston on Saturday, November 1, to highlight the looming health care crisis driven by the Trump and MAGA Republican federal government shutdown. Senator Markey was joined by Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, Executive Director of the Boston Public Health Commission; Jeff Sternick, a lung cancer patient, and Lung Force Hero Advocate with the American Lung Association; and small business owners Jeffrey Lee and Erika Johnson-Narbonne. Below is an excerpt from Senator Markey's remarks as prepared:

"As Open Enrollment begins, 22 million Americans are in for sticker shock. They are finding out that their health insurance will be dramatically more expensive next year. And why? Because Trump and his minions refuse to extend - or even negotiate to extend - the Affordable Care Act's enhanced premium tax credits that expire at the end of this year -all so they can afford to give big, fat tax breaks to CEO billionaires. While families gather around the kitchen table, figuring out how to make ends meet, Donald Trump is refusing to come to the negotiating table.

"The decisions Trump and MAGA Republicans are forcing people to make are unconscionable. Republicans call it a government shutdown because they don't want to admit what they and Trump are doing: a health care shutdown. And now, as Republicans refuse to negotiate, Trump has allowed SNAP benefits to run dry. It shouldn't have to come to this. The President shouldn't have to be ordered to keep families from going hungry. The 1.1 million people in Massachusetts who rely on SNAP-one in every six people in our state-shouldn't have to wonder if they will be able to put food on the table. But the cruelty is the point. In Trump's America, the White House gets a new gold ballroom and Argentina gets a $40 billion bailout, while babies and seniors and disabled Americans starve and get sick. It's a moral failure, plain and simple."

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