What Steep Health Insurance Price Hikes Could Mean for Nearly 2 Million Californians on Covered CA

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KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The cost of healthcare insurance is at the core of the government shutdown. Democrats and Republicans are at a stalemate over the extension of subsidies that decrease the price of insurance purchased under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Without the extension, experts predict a sharp increase in premiums for the 44 million Americans who rely on this health insurance. And hundreds of thousands of Californians may be priced out of the market. With open enrollment beginning in two weeks, we’ll talk to experts including the director of Covered California, about what’s at stake. Guests: Larry Levitt, executive vice president, KFF Jessica Altman, executive director, Covered California, the state health insurance exchange Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	This week on KQED's Bay Curious.
0:03.1	Every neighborhood in San Francisco has got these hidden stairway walks.
0:08.3	It's kind of a cool connection to the past because people have been going up and down these stairways, some of them since the 1800s.
0:14.8	So here I am at the shortest staircase in San Francisco.
0:18.0	It is just one step.
0:19.6	For the sake of journalism, I'm going to walk it.
0:25.0	Find this episode of Bay Curious wherever you get your podcasts. This week on KQED's Close All
0:32.4	Taps. We're talking about the AI hype machine. 95% of companies just haven't really gained value from AI.
0:40.7	So what happens when the bubble bursts?
0:43.6	Tech companies would like us to believe that AI is the future.
0:47.1	Even if you don't like it, you have to resign yourself to it.
0:49.5	And I refuse that.
0:51.5	Find this episode of Close All Tababs wherever you get your podcasts.
0:55.0	From KQED.
1:00.0	Welcome to Forum.
1:04.0	I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:06.0	We're two weeks out from open enrollment that time when, if you are me, you reflect on the strangeness
1:12.9	of the American health insurance system. This year, it comes in the midst of a fight over
1:18.1	the Obamacare subsidies that Congress passed during the pandemic and which are now set to expire.
1:24.4	Some people who use the ACA exchanges could see their premiums double, and that could have a whole bunch of knock-on effects.
1:31.3	Here to discuss and also to take your questions.
1:34.1	We're joined by a couple of real experts.
	...

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