These home care workers fought for Fetterman. Now they want him to fight for them

Home care workers faced with exploding health care costs if ACA tax credits aren’t extended are demanding help from US Sen. John Fetterman. 

Dozens of health care workers from Service Employees International Union Healthcare Pennsylvania (SEIU HCPA) gathered outside of US Sen. John Fetterman’s (D-Pennsylvania) Harrisburg office on Friday. They demanded that he fight to extend the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace tax credits that expire at the end of this year. 

More than 270,000 Pennsylvanians who purchase their health insurance through Pennie, the commonwealth’s health care marketplace, are at risk of losing their health insurance if ACA tax credits are not extended. Monthly premiums could rise by 300% for some residents, and the average Pennine customer faces an 82% increase, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune.

These workers are calling on Fetterman to stand up for them and fight for them after they donated time, money, and effort to get him elected. 

“More than 80% of our home care workers rely on the Pennie program,” Helen Burke, an Erie County home care worker, told The Keystone in an interview. 

“They rely on medicaid for their own health insurance, and if they don’t give these tax credits to us, these people are gonna lose [their health care] because we don’t make a livable wage.  I make $13.30. How am I supposed to pay $600, $700 a month in insurance costs? That’s just ridiculous.”

On top of the expiring tax credits, changes made to ACA in President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act“ will make it more difficult for customers to purchase health care through Pennie. 

The bill shortens the open enrollment period by one month, requires enrollees to pay the full price of their plans until their incomes are verified, and ends automatic enrollments for those who purchase their health care through Pennie.   

Burke delivered a letter signed by hundreds of health care workers to Fetterman’s office and was joined by Lynn Weidner, an Allentown home care worker who will lose her coverage if these tax credits aren’t extended. 

“My current Pennie plan is $450 a month – that’s with my subsidy,” Weidner said in an interview. I got a letter recently saying that my insurance is gonna increase by 82%. That’s over $700. I cannot afford that. I make $14 an hour. I work 80 hours a week. It’s not like I can get another job that has health insurance.”

Fetterman recently stated that he will not support a government shutdown, even if it is the only leverage Democrats have to extend these subsidies, and both Burke and Weidner see that as a betrayal. 

“ I worked hard on door knocking and phone banking and, donating to the campaign to get [Fetterman] elected so that he could work for me, and it’s a betrayal if he doesn’t,” Wediner said. “If he doesn’t extend this to help and prevent the collapse of Pennsylvania’s health care system, he’s not working for us, and it’s a betrayal.”

Burke shared similar sentiments.

“ I did a lot of work to get this man elected and put into this office, and I feel if he doesn’t stand with us now,” she said. “Fetterman, it’s time you stand with us. We got you here, and every working constituent in Pennsylvania, we deserve you to do your job.”