The Democrats’ affordability agenda for their first 100 days in control of Congress starts with three things: bringing back the extra help that lowered health insurance premiums under the Affordable Care Act, reversing the Medicaid cuts Republicans passed in 2025, and rolling back Trump’s tariffs while giving Congress back its power over trade. Hakeem Jeffries, who is running to become the first Black Speaker of the House, summed it up the morning after the election: “We ran on affordability, we won on affordability, and now it’s our job to govern on affordability.”
Democrats take control of the House and Senate in January. Here is what each piece of the plan means for the people paying the bills.
The first item is health insurance. The Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, lets people who don’t get insurance through a job buy a plan on a government marketplace. For several years, Congress gave buyers extra financial help, called enhanced subsidies, that brought monthly premiums way down. Republicans let that extra help expire at the end of 2025, after a 43 day government shutdown that Democrats forced largely over this issue ended without a deal. Jeffries has pointed out that between 90% and 93% of people on the marketplaces get federal help paying for their plans. When the extra help disappeared, many of those families saw their premiums jump. Restoring it would bring those costs back down.
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The second item is Medicaid, the government health insurance program for people with low incomes. Trump’s 2025 tax and spending bill cut close to $1 trillion from Medicaid over ten years and added work requirements, meaning many adults have to prove they are working, volunteering or in school a set number of hours each month to keep their coverage. The Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan office that scores the cost of legislation, estimated the law would leave about 10 million more people without health insurance over the next decade. Black Americans are covered by Medicaid at higher rates than the country as a whole, so these cuts land hardest in Black communities. Democrats want to undo them.
The third item is tariffs, which are taxes on goods brought into the country from overseas. Trump has placed tariffs on imports from countries around the world. The companies that bring those goods in pay the tax, and they pass much of that cost on to shoppers through higher prices on everything from groceries to cars to building materials. Democrats want to undo Trump’s tariffs and restore Congress’s authority to oversee trade, a power Trump has largely taken over by declaring economic emergencies.
The affordability agenda has a major obstacle. Trump still has the veto pen. Any bill Congress passes goes to his desk, and if he vetoes it, Congress needs a two thirds vote in both the House and the Senate to override him. Democrats will have majorities in both chambers, but nowhere near two thirds. Tariffs are central to Trump’s economic plan, and he is unlikely to sign a bill that undoes them. The same goes for reversing a Medicaid law he signed.
That means the first 100 days could be about leverage as much as lawmaking. Democrats now control which bills reach the floor, which hearings happen and which officials get called to testify. Senator Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which handles taxes, trade and health programs, put the strategy this way: “Under my leadership, the top priorities of the Finance Committee will be affordability for us, accountability for them.” Democrats can also attach their priorities to bills Trump needs, like the spending bills that keep the government open, and force Republicans to vote on them in public.
Voters made clear what they expect. Exit polls showed the cost of living ranked at the top of voters’ concerns, and Black voters in the South turned out in numbers that helped deliver the Democratic majority. Five Black governors also take office in January, and governors control state budgets, state Medicaid programs and state taxes. Some of the fastest relief on household bills could come from state capitals rather than Washington.
Jeffries has said the American people “want us to get things done on their behalf because life is way too expensive.” Democrats get their first chance when the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3, 2027.
