Cruz’s decade-old Obamacare warning comes true amid government shutdown fight

More than a decade ago, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, predicted that health care premiums would skyrocket, even in the face of subsidies put in place under Obamacare that were supposed to lower them.

Now, skyrocketing premiums and the subsidies that accompany them are at the center of a 22-day shutdown that looks set to get even longer.

“Despite Obamacare subsidies, many Americans will continue to pay higher premiums in 2014 because of Obamacare,” Cruz said in 2013, referring to the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

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Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, February 20, 2025. (José Luis Magana/AP Photo)

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In his 2013 speech, Cruz highlighted the research of Avik Roy, a health care researcher who, at the time, was a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Roy’s research showed that the subsidies passed by the Obama administration would do little to prevent government-backed health care plans from becoming more expensive over time or from competing effectively with non-government-backed plans.

But even these projections pale in comparison to the costs of the government’s emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

President Barack Obama delivers a speech on Obamacare at an event in Washington, November 4, 2013. (Reuters)

Subsidies under Obamacare have increased significantly in recent years. An emergency provision included in President Joe Biden’s 2021 American Rescue Plan expanded the range of eligible applicants in response to the global pandemic.

Now that these COVID-era provisions are set to expire at the end of 2025, an expiration date set by Democrats themselves, Democrats are concerned that Obamacare policyholders will have to shoulder the costs of health insurance without the additional boosted aid.

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According to the Commission for a Responsible Federal Budget, According to a nonpartisan think tank that focuses on fiscal policy, continuing the expanded appropriations could cost more than $30 billion a year. Findings from KFF, a health policy group, indicate that more than 90 percent of Obamacare’s 24 million enrollees are using the enhanced credits.

KFF Analysis reports that enhanced premium tax credits saved subsidized enrollees an average of $705 last year.

Democrats in Congress, led by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have demanded some sort of extension of the already expanded COVID-era grants as a condition for passing spending legislation to end the current government shutdown, which is now the longest complete shutdown in the story.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., right, speak with reporters following their meeting with President Donald Trump and Republican leaders on the government funding crisis, at the Capitol in Washington, Sept. 29, 2025. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

Republicans, who argue that the subsidies are irrelevant to government funding considerations, said lawmakers would address the issue of subsidies when the government reopens.

The most conservative members of Congress have said cutting subsidies is key to returning the government to pre-COVID-19 funding levels.

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Senate lawmakers have voted 11 times on a short-term spending extension intended to keep the government open through Nov. 21, but have so far failed to break the impasse over enhanced premium tax credits.

Cruz did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.