Blogger’s Note: I have lived through a “Socialist” NHS that advocated “care” and not “cost” – to a “privatised” (post-1979) NHS which now advocates “cost” over “care” (the reason thousands die each year from a lack of basic and available treatment). GPs now routinely practice the strategy of making a patient unnecessarily “suffer” in the hope they will “volunteer” a private fee for treatment that is already available and paid for by general taxation. The British NHS (Scotland refused the Blairite-cuts and retains the “old” NHS – but it is paid for by the far more numerous English workers in their tax) used to be like that found in the USSR (which the Labour Party copied in 1948), Cuba, and North Korea. When I was young – my generation never thought that the capitalists would take away our healthcare system “free at the point of us” – but the capitalists are doing this. The Americans have only got themselves to blame (I exclude my US comrades who are ill and injured – if it were up to me – you would receive free healthcare NOW) – but we in the UK possess a working-class which fought a brutal World War to put an end to health poverty. Now, my US relatives (yes – they exist) – used to come to the UK to receive “free” healthcare (no questions asked) until one of the UK governments put an end to that perk (my father’s sister married a US soldier stationed in the UK – and went to live in Seattle – whilst retaining her British citizenship). Now, when a health issue hits, they have to sell a plot of land to raise the funds to pay for operations and treatments. However, just as in the UK – with a restricted NHS – we have to endure various health issues just because there is no money. We literally “save-up” our illnesses until we can no longer take the pain – or the malady becomes life-threatening. Even then, for many there is no avenue of treatment available. As usual, the workers carry-out all the labour, produce all the profit, and receive very little of the earned benefits. We die of starvation surround by an ocean of food, we freeze surrounded by endless houses, and we die of medical neglect surrounded by first-world hospitals stacked with the most advanced drugs and trained experts. Trained experts that receive huge salaries from the very workers they refuse to treat – due to (fascistic) governmental dogma! (2.1.2026)

Americans brace to start New Year without healthcare

Ana Faguy – 1.1.2026

Adrienne Martin and her family are starting the New Year off without healthcare.

The 47-year-old Texas mother had to make a difficult choice when she found out her monthly healthcare premium was increasing in 2026 from what she described as a manageable $630 (£467) to an unaffordable $2,400 (£1,781).

Her husband depends on an IV medication to treat a blood-clotting disease that costs $70,000 a month without insurance. Knowing their benefits would expire, the family stockpiled the drug to survive the first few months of the year.

“It would be like paying two mortgage payments,” she said of the new monthly price for healthcare. “We can’t pay $30,000 for insurance a year.”

Ms Martin and her family are not the only ones facing this conundrum. Millions of Americans will see their healthcare bills skyrocket when these subsidies, which were provided through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, expire.

Some members of Congress on both sides of the aisle attempted to extend these subsidies into 2026, but Washington was gridlocked. A vote in the new year could offer hope, but until then, many like Ms Martin will have to live without insurance or see their bills steeply increase.

About 24 million Americans buy health insurance through the ACA marketplace, and the majority were used to receiving tax credits to lower the monthly price.

Those tax credits, also referred to as subsidies, were first introduced through former President Barack Obama’s ACA in 2014. They were then expanded during Covid.

The fight to extend the subsidies became the centre of the longest government shutdown in US history, which went on for more than 40 days earlier this year.

Democrats wanted to force Republicans to extend the subsidies for an additional three years, which would cost $35bn per year. Republicans did not want the government to foot the bill for another three years of subsidies without spending cuts.

The weeks-long shutdown – which left millions without essential government services – ended when a group of Democratic senators agreed to reopen the government, if Republicans in the Senate agreed to vote on extending the subsidies.

But that vote still hasn’t happened yet, despite efforts from Democrats and four Republicans to put the issue to Congress before the subsidies expired.

“I am pissed for the American people,” New York Congressman Mike Lawler, a Republican who pushed to save the subsidies, said. “Everybody has a responsibility to serve their district, to their constituents. You know what is funny? Three-quarters of people on Obamacare are in states Donald Trump won.”

Without the subsidies, the monthly cost of healthcare could rise by 114% on average, according to health research non-profit KFF.

Maddie Bannister is among the Americans bracing for that.

The California mother, who just had her second child, was paying $124 a month for her family of three in 2025. Now, with a new baby and no ACA subsidies, she is preparing to pay $908 a month.

“So many people are going to choose to be uninsured because it’s cheaper to pay a penalty for being uninsured than it is to have healthcare,” she said.

For Ms Bannister’s family, the increased cost of healthcare means putting off other spending: “We were saving for a home, and saving money for that is going to take way longer if we have to spend $11,000 a year on healthcare that we barely use.”

While Ms Bannister is stomaching her new bill, and Ms Martin is going without healthcare, others are resorting to different government programmes to get their coverage.

For years, Stephanie Petersen used Medicaid – a healthcare program for lower-income Americans – to get healthcare coverage. Just recently, she was able to switch and get her coverage through the ACA – a welcome change for the 38-year-old.

Because her health care is skyrocketing from $75 to $580 a month, she is returning to Medicaid coverage in the New Year.

“I’m trying to stay optimistic but the way things have been going, I’m not hopeful,” the Illinois resident said. “Everyone should have affordable, good healthcare, and not have to jump through all these hoops.”

A vote on the three-year extension of the ACA subsidies is now expected the week of 5 January when Congress returns to Washington.

Until then, Ms Martin will be one of the more than 27 million Americans without health insurance in 2026.

A number that is likely to grow, experts warn, as healthcare costs increase.

“We’re not low-income people, we make decent money, but we can’t afford $30,000 a year for insurance, that’s crazy,” she said.

“We’ve done everything we’re supposed to do, we’ve worked our whole lives, we work hard, and we just get screwed. The whole system is a nightmare.”