News + Press
News + Press
News + Press
Not a Happy New Year for Health Care in West Virginia
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 2, 2026
Charleston, WV — West Virginians who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act are waking up to dramatically higher premiums — and for many, insurance they can no longer afford.
More than 60,000 West Virginians are impacted by these increases, with costs rising significantly now that enhanced ACA subsidies have lapsed. Without Congressional action to extend this support, families are being forced to shoulder much larger shares of the cost of their coverage this year.
At the same time that health insurance costs are climbing, the promise of “historic” prescription drug price reductions touted by President Trump is being contradicted by actions from the very companies involved in his drug pricing deals. Ahead of the 2026 launch of many of those plans, drugmakers are planning to raise prices on at least 350 prescription medications this year — a rise from the roughly 250 drugs that saw increases in 2025.
Despite Trump’s repeated claims that his administration had secured the “greatest price cuts in history,” these planned price hikes show that many drug manufacturers are moving in the opposite direction. Some of the same companies that were involved in Trump’s pricing agreements are now set to increase costs on widely used medications even as they tout discounted deals for limited programs like Medicaid — which cover only a portion of patients.
According to published reports the pricing deals struck between the Trump administration and drug makers apply to the Medicaid program, while most Americans are on commercial health plans. Expert analysis suggests that this most-favored-nation pricing could have a negligible impact on Medicaid patients, because the program already guarantees the lowest price offered to any commercial payer — meaning many Americans won’t see the relief that was promised.
“These price cuts are just part of Trump’s ponzi scheme on the American people,” said West Virginia Democratic Party Chair Mike Pushkin. “West Virginians are seeing their health insurance premiums explode and are now watching the cost of the medicines they depend on go up. Meanwhile, the president is taking credit for ‘historic’ drug deals that don’t actually lower costs for most of the people who need them.”
Trump’s shell game, otherwise known as The Big Ugly Bill, cuts $1 trillion from Medicaid forcing 10 million Americans to lose their health insurance while putting over 300 rural hospitals at risk of closing, including 13 in West Virginia. Even with the massive cuts to health care and food assistance, Trump’s bill grows the deficit while enacting permanent tax cuts for billionaires while offering only temporary relief for working Americans.
Chair Pushkin continued: “This isn’t a happy new year for West Virginians. It’s a year of higher costs, fewer protections, and failure from national leaders who promised relief but delivered more pain. Families in West Virginia deserve affordable health insurance and prescription drugs — not a system rigged to benefit insurance companies and Big Pharma at the expense of everyday people.”
The West Virginia Democratic Party is calling on Congress to act immediately to restore and strengthen health care subsidies and to pass meaningful reforms that will truly reduce prescription drug costs for all Americans.
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