The Century Foundation

Hitting Where It Hurts: Expiring Healthcare Tax Credit Means Price Hikes for Americans with Cancer

PUBLISHED 9/23/2025 by and

For more than 18 million Americans living with cancer, access to healthcare and health coverage is more than just financial security. It connects them to life-saving care that maintains and improves their quality of life.

However, federal action—and inaction—may sever that connection for people with cancer.

Without congressional action, current marketplace premium tax credits will plummet on Jan. 1, 2026—by an average of 93 percent in HealthCare.gov states. Among people with cancer receiving these tax credits, 86 percent report they will have difficulty affording and getting necessary health care services.

Pandemic-Era Childcare Funding Has Officially Run Out. Childcare Providers and Children Will Pay the Price.

PUBLISHED 9/28/2023 by , , and

Passed in January 2021 with the goal of providing COVID-era relief, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocated $39 billion towards childcare programming. The majority—$24 billion—went directly to childcare and daycare centers, to help the programs remain open and staffed. On Sept. 30, that funding expired, and Congress took no action to extend it. Last month, Senate Democrats introduced The Child Care Stabilization Act, a bill to extend childcare stabilization funding for five years. But until the measure gets support from Republicans, it cannot be considered for a vote.

More than 3 million children are projected to lose access to childcare nationwide, and 70,000 childcare programs are likely to close. This will have ripple effects for parents forced out of work or to cut their work hours, for businesses who will lose valuable employees or experience the impact of their employees’ childcare disruptions, and state economies that will lose tax revenue and jobs in the childcare sector as a result.

Three Reasons Congress Should Reject Medicaid Work Requirements

PUBLISHED 5/4/2023 by , and

On April 26, the House passed Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling bill, the “Limit, Save and Grow Act.” If enacted, the bill would create new work reporting requirements, stripping Medicaid coverage from adults unable to document eighty hours of work or community service per month.

Work reporting requirements are unnecessary, harmful and ultimately counter to the goals of the Medicaid program. Here’s why.

Industrial Policy Requires Care Infrastructure Investments

PUBLISHED 3/2/2023 by , and

The combination of the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)—all signed into law by President Biden in the past two years—will create millions of new jobs in the American economy in the months and years ahead. These new industrial policy jobs will be across energy, physical infrastructure, manufacturing, science and technology.

Building care infrastructure into industrial infrastructure is the best way to ensure that these good jobs that have been created have people to work in them. Building a care infrastructure into the new U.S. industrial policy is not only the right thing to do, but also the most strategic.

The U.S. Is in Urgent Need of Childcare Solutions. Build Back Better Would Be a Game-Changer

PUBLISHED 1/6/2022 by and

The U.S. has not prioritized childcare. Even before the pandemic, many families could not find childcare when and where they needed it. More than half of all families lived in childcare deserts, and those who didn’t faced exorbitant prices. That’s gotten even worse during the COVID-19 pandemic. For those who can afford childcare, extremely high prices take a toll—many families pay more than mortgage payments or rent for care. It’s unacceptable.

The Build Back Better Act will be a game-changer for parents across the nation, lowering prices and increasing the supply of high-quality care at the same time.

Build Back Better Will Transform Childcare and Early Learning in the U.S.

PUBLISHED 11/4/2021 by

Build Back Better’s provisions to lower childcare costs, improve the quality of early education and increase wages will provide immediate relief to families hit hardest by the pandemic.

The more than 1 million moms still out of the workforce will begin to return to work, and others will be able to increase their hours and earnings.

America Might Finally Get a Comprehensive Care System

PUBLISHED 5/26/2021 by
America Might Finally Get a Comprehensive Care System

The Biden–Harris administration’s American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan taken together would lay the foundation for building comprehensive child care and early learning, creating greater access to home- and community-based services with a well paid workforce, and paid family and medical leave for everyone that would bolster women’s workforce participation, support healthy child development and learning, ensure people with disabilities can live independently, support aging with dignity, and ensure a flourishing economic future for everyone.