The end of expanded subsidies for the Affordable Care Act exchanges means more people will go without health insurance, workers, doctors, and researchers said.
Open enrollment is under way for 2026 insurance coverage, and millions of Americans are facing extreme sticker shock thanks to the end of expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies, which capped Obamacare premiums for a “benchmark” insurance plan at 8.5 percent of income. Twenty-two million people relied on that funding, at a cost of about $35 billion annually.
With the expanded subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, reverting back to a less generous subsidy level last in place in 2021, patients around the country are facing premium increases that are so extreme, they’re either reducing health insurance coverage or dropping it altogether. Some are facing price hikes many multiples higher than they paid last year; those whose costs only doubled told the Prospect they considered themselves lucky by comparison.
At my job,
It went from $150/month to $400/month.
Family rate was $800/month to $1400/month.
It’s so fucked.
I was reading through some of the ACA plans as they are right now and the low income one for an individual that was “free” had a $9,500+ deductible. In any other country in that’s the cost per capita of healthcare.
“Can’t afford healthcare, we’lll tell people we are trying to help you for votes, but not actually help you at all”
While that is definitely fucked, it is due to a different problem. The probelm discussed in this article impacts people who cant get affordable insurance through their employer and, instead, go through the ACA health care exchanges.
Maybe your employer is taking advantage of the confusion around this issue to quietly make you pay a larger share?
The article describes this too: healthy people balk at the high premiums, drop their insurance, the pool of people on insurance becomes proportionally more sick people who can’t risk dropping coverage, the insurance companies realize they’ll have to pay out more per person, premiums go up.
I mean, your job might be screwing you over regardless, but there are other explanations.
I guess my point is mainly that the increase in price for employer supplied health care is unlikely to be due to the changes in subsidies. It is more likely due to gouging by someone somewhere in the chain. We don’t know enough about the impacts of losing subsidies for health care companies to adjust other prices in good faith. Someone is getting wealthy off the changes to that employer supplied health care plan.
I just want to note how ridiculous this point is as well. Not only does it again ignore that the impact to employer programs is listed in the article, you are also wrong about not knowing enough about the impacts.
Insurance companies have been planning and telegraphing these price increases for a year and explaining that the subsidies going away WILL effect commercial premiums, you are making statements from a place of total ignorance apparently.
Shit, point conceded… Thanks for correcting me.
What are you talking about, it’s literally an impact listed in the article. Did you and everyone who upvoted you just skim or not read it at all.
Shit, point conceded… Thanks for correcting me.
Either way they appear to be impacted by this. So the problem is the same, yes?
I know people that are employed and on ACA.
In my area, the “retail” cost of ACA’s benchmark plan for a single 50-year-old is $1145/month (up from $925 in 2025).
In 2025, you’d have to earn $130,000 to actually pay that, and someone making $60k would have paid just $466 after tax credit. Same person could have gotten a cheap “Bronze” plan for $340. You could get a bronze plan for $0 out-of-pocket below $40k income.
In 2026, anyone earning over $62k will have to pay the full $1145/month. Someone earning just $58,000 could get that plan for $466/month (after credits), or a Bronze plan for $280. Have to make less than $34k to get a bronze plan $0 OOP.