Dear Delaware,

Yesterday afternoon the Senate refused to even debate a resolution that would have blocked next year’s marketplace rule. The vote was 48 to 51. One senator did not vote. The motion to proceed failed. The rule stays.

This was not January’s fight. In January the Senate rejected a different disapproval resolution, S.J.Res.84, aimed at a June 2025 rule called Marketplace Integrity and Affordability. Yesterday’s measure was S.J.Res.197. It would have disapproved the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rule titled “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, HHS Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters for 2027; and Basic Health Program,” published in the Federal Register on May 20 (91 FR 29526). Senate Roll Call 251, 2:21 p.m. That is the vote. Do not let a headline mash the two together.

Both of Delaware’s senators, Chris Coons and Lisa Blunt Rochester, voted yes, to let the Senate take up the disapproval. Susan Collins of Maine voted yes with them. It was not enough. Fifty-one senators voted no. Dan Sullivan of Alaska did not vote.

A yes was a vote to start debate on blocking the rule. It was not, by itself, a repeal. Because the motion failed, the 2027 rule remains in effect on its own dates. The rule took effect July 20, 2026. Many of its changes land in plan year 2027.

Delaware buys marketplace coverage on HealthCare.gov. CMS lists Delaware among the HealthCare.gov states. On December 29, 2025, the Delaware Insurance Commissioner said enhanced premium tax credits help about 42,000 Delawareans afford coverage. That is a statement about 2026 help paying the premium. It is not a price tag on yesterday’s vote. We do not have the kind of Basic Health Program CMS described in its latest open-enrollment snapshot for Oregon, New York, and Minnesota. The Basic Health Program payment changes in this rule are about states that run one. Delaware’s stake is the marketplace: what plans look like, how people enroll, and who can get help paying the premium.

CMS’s own fact sheet on the final rule says issuers on the federal platform no longer have to offer standardized plan options, and the old limits on non-standardized plans come off. The rule allows catastrophic plans with terms of up to 10 consecutive plan years, and it changes cost-sharing parameters for individual-market bronze plans beginning in 2027. It also keeps tighter checks on special-enrollment sign-ups, and it lines premium-tax-credit eligibility up with limits in the Working Families Tax Cut law, including limits tied to immigration status.

I am not going to invent a Delaware premium. CMS has not published a Delaware price tag for yesterday’s vote, and I will not make one up. Lower user fees in the rule are not the same thing as a lower bill in your mailbox.

What I can say is this. The chance to stop that 2027 rule before it governs the plans Delaware families shop failed by three votes. Coverage rules for next year stay on the terms CMS wrote.

Health care is a kitchen-table bill, not a favor. I spent years as a travel ICU nurse. I have watched what happens when the deductible is the real plan. Families deserve a marketplace they can understand, and a senator who will say which rule is which.

This campaign is people-funded. No Super PAC. Ever.

The Delaware Department of Elections lists me as a Qualified write-in candidate. My name is not printed on the ballot. If you are not registered yet, the deadline is Saturday, October 10. Thirty-four days from now, on November 3, write TRAVIS JACK STEVENS for U.S. Senate.

With gratitude and determination,

Travis Jack Stevens
Write-in candidate for U.S. Senate · Delaware
travisjackstevens.com