Pappas Meets with NH Small Business Facing Sudden Increase in Health Care Costs

Today Congressman Chris Pappas (NH-01) visited the W.H. Bagshaw Company in Hudson, one of New Hampshire’s small manufacturers. Pappas met with leadership and staff, toured their facility, and discussed the negative impact of expected increases in health care costs on their business.

“Everyone will feel the impact of the lapse of the Affordable Care Act’s premium tax credits,” said Congressman Chris Pappas. “Thousands of Granite Staters will lose coverage due to high costs. Many more will be forced to stretch their budgets thinner than ever to maintain their health insurance. Small businesses like W.H. Bagshaw will see their costs skyrocket as insurers raise prices across the board to account for these changes in the market. More and more Americans will go uninsured and end up coming into emergency rooms needing costly, uncompensated care that could have been prevented if they had maintained coverage. Speaker Johnson must bring the House back into session now so that we can address this urgent issue.”

“We’re a family business. Covering 100% of our employees’ health insurance is a point of pride for our company,” said Adria Bagshaw, Vice President of W.H. Bagshaw Company. “When we received notice less than a week ago that the annual premium for our health insurance plan would increase by 38% next year, we were shocked. We want to continue paying 100% of our employees' premium costs, but an increase of this magnitude means we will spend more on health care in 2026 than we do on the raw materials that drive our production. Premium increases of this size put real financial strain on New Hampshire’s small businesses and manufacturers, and we can’t afford for leaders in Washington to continue to try and kick this issue under the rug.”

Background:

Last week W.H. Bagshaw received notice that the annual premium for their health care plan would increase by approximately 38% in 2026. In explaining the increase, their health insurance provider directly attributed the change in cost to the elimination of the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits coming at the end of the year, and the resulting decline in individual market membership.

Leadership from Lamprey Health Care spoke about the burden of these increased costs with Pappas last week during a roundtable, where they shared that they, too, have been notified by their health insurance provider that their annual premium is expected to increase by 40% next year.

Pappas supports legislation that would prevent extreme increases in health care premiums next year by extending the enhanced premium tax credits that keep health insurance affordable for Granite Staters and small businesses. Pappas is also joining his colleagues in sending a letter to Speaker Johnson highlighting the major impacts that small businesses will face if the enhanced premium tax credits expire and urging the Speaker to end the shutdown by passing legislation to extend the enhanced premium tax credits immediately.

If Congress fails to act, it’s estimated that individual premiums could increase by up to 75% next year. This would have a major impact on small businesses like W.H. Bagshaw whose employees have employer-provided coverage as the cost of care for an increased number of uninsured Americans is spread across the market, as well as self-employed entrepreneurs and employees of small businesses who represent nearly half of the adults covered by the ACA.