H.R. 247: Health Care Affordability Act of 2025

The Affordable Care Act sets your marketplace premium help using a percentage of household income — the higher you earn, the more you are expected to pay toward your own coverage. But the formula stops at 400% of the federal poverty line. Cross that line by one dollar and the credit does not shrink, it disappears, and you owe the full sticker price of the plan.

H.R. 247 strikes six words from the tax code — the phrase capping eligibility at 400%. With the ceiling gone, there is no income at which help ends outright — your required contribution simply keeps climbing as your income does.

The bill replaces the current percentage rule with a table of income tiers. Within each tier, the share you pay rises on a straight-line sliding scale from a starting percentage to an ending percentage, so there is no step down between brackets either. Three cross-references in the law's employer-coverage affordability rules are struck to match; the bill labels those conforming amendments.

This is not a new program. It is the same refundable credit, claimed the same way at tax time, for the same qualified marketplace plans — the eligibility door is just wider. There is no new penalty, no new agency, and no new enrollment requirement.

The change would apply to tax years beginning after December 31, 2025, meaning 2026 coverage and later.