These Three Oregon Counties Will Be Hit Hardest by Obamacare Cuts at the Heart of the Federal Budget Shutdown
By Khushboo Rathore
October 3, 2025
A key sticking point of the current federal government shutdown is something called “the enhanced premium tax credit,” which Democrats want to keep and Republicans want to end. The credit, if not extended, will have an outsized impact in three Oregon counties.
An outgrowth of the 2014 Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, the credit allows people earning more than 100% of the federal poverty level to pay reduced premiums when they buy their ACA health insurance.
Republicans did not include the premium credits in the budget bill President Trump signed July 4.
If the tax credit disappears, an estimated 110,000 Oregon workers will pay an additional $127 to $456 a month for plans through the ACA insurance marketplace, according to an Oregon Health Authority report.
“This is going to play on people's pocketbooks,” says Amy Coven, an OHA spokeswoman. “It really can make the difference between someone having health insurance and not.”
Originally, the feds offered the premium tax credit only to those earning less than 400% of the federal poverty level ($15,560 a year for a one-person household, with $5,500 for each additional person). Congress temporarily raised, or “enhanced,” the income limit during the pandemic and then extended it through 2025.
The subsidy boosted health insurance coverage around the country, including in Oregon, where 97% of residents have health insurance.
According to an Oregon Journalism Project analysis of OHA data, loss of the subsidy will hit higher percentages of the population hardest in Hood River, Deschutes and Wallowa counties.
The job markets of these three counties depend heavily on outdoor recreation, says Todd Montgomery, director of Oregon State University’s Sustainable Tourism Lab.
Those jobs are often filled by workers “making somewhere between minimum wage and maybe 20 bucks an hour,” Montgomery says. “And those are also the ones that are most likely to need that health care coverage. So if you start to take that away, it's problematic.”