IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Friday, December 12, 2025

CONTACT:
Lauren Fitzgerald
[email protected]
(785) 249-6923

KKansas Cancer Patient on Senator Roger Marshall’s Refusal to Support ACA Subsidies: “Absolute, Horrible BS”

TOPEKA — TOPEKA, KS — Kansans are speaking out after Senator Roger Marshall voted yet again against extending essential ACA subsidies, calling his refusal to lower healthcare costs “absolute, horrible BS.”

Marshall publicly admitted that “premiums are going to go up” because of his refusal to extend ACA subsidies, a move that will spike healthcare costs for around 200,000 Kansans and is causing “panic” across the state.

Read more:

KSHB: ‘It’s panic time for a lot of people’: Kansans react as Senate fails to pass bills on healthcare subsidies

December 11, 2025

By Charlie Keegan

• The U.S. Senate failed to pass several proposals Thursday to address the cost of premiums for people getting health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

• A federal subsidy is set to expire at the end of the year.

• Dawn Wheeler, of Edwardsville, Kansas, has cancer and relies on an Affordable Care Act plan to cover the costs of her treatment.

• In 2025, she paid $69 per month for her premium. If the subsidy expires, her cost will increase to $2,300 per month.

• “It’s panic time for a lot of people,” Wheeler said. “I honestly don’t know what we’re going to do.”
  
• Two bills failed to get 60 necessary votes Thursday to pass the Senate. A third proposal from Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) also failed Thursday.

• He blamed Democrats for preventing his bill from passing.

• “I’m horribly sorry that the Democrats rejected my year-long extension,” Marshall replied when asked to give a message to Kansans like Wheeler.

• “That is a bunch of ‘I’m sorry’ BS. Absolute, horrible BS,” Wheeler said after seeing Marshall’s response. “They need to do better.”

• In the House of Representatives, a group of bipartisan lawmakers, including Democrat Sharice Davids, are supporting a new proposal. It would extend the subsidies for two years.

• “When I’m at Price Chopper grabbing my groceries, I mean, literally every single person mentions the increasing costs of healthcare, how scared they are, how worried they are,” Davids said.

Wheeler is hopeful something will happen by the end of the year. She can’t afford health insurance without the subsidy.

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