On October 1^st the U.S. federal government shut down after Congress failed to pass a stopgap spending bill to keep it funded. Now in its sixth week, the shutdown marks the longest lapse in federal funding in U.S. history. Congress remains at a standstill over whether to extend the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits (ePTCs). About three quarters of the public continue to say Congress should extend the expiring tax credits, including more than nine in ten (94%) Democrats, three in four (76%) independents, and half of Republicans. As the debate continues, this poll shows that partisan loyalties among the public are deepening, with Republicans split over whether they want Congress to extend the tax credits for people who purchase their own coverage on the ACA marketplaces or allow them to expire.

This KFF Health Tracking Poll was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at KFF. The survey was conducted October 27-November 2, 2025, online and by telephone among a nationally representative sample of 1,350 U.S. adults in English (n=1,274) and in Spanish (n=76). The sample includes 1,031 adults (n=63 in Spanish) reached through the SSRS Opinion Panel either online (n=1,007) or over the phone (n=24).

The SSRS Opinion Panel is a nationally representative probability-based panel where panel members are recruited randomly in one of two ways: (a) Through invitations mailed to respondents randomly sampled from an Address-Based Sample (ABS) provided by Marketing Systems Groups (MSG) through the U.S. Postal Service’s Computerized Delivery Sequence (CDS); (b) from a dual-frame random digit dial (RDD) sample provided by MSG. For the online panel component, invitations were sent to panel members by email followed by up to three reminder emails.