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The cost of ObamaCare coverage could shoot up even higher next year as insurers are proposing a median increase of 14 percent, according to an analysis of initial filings from KFF.
If the preliminary filings hold, it would mark the second-straight year of double-digit premium increases, putting customers on the hook for thousands of dollars more in health costs. Between 2025 and 2027, Affordable Care Act marketplace premiums will have increased by one third, the analysis showed.
Last year’s median nationwide proposed rate change was 18 percent and the median finalized rate change was 20 percent. While this proposed rate change is lower than last year, it represents the second-highest requested rate change since 2018, KFF said.
The reasons for the increase were similar across all the 77 insurers that had filed preliminary rates ahead of the July 15 deadline: health care costs are broadly more expensive, and health inflation keeps rising. In addition, Republicans in Congress let the law’s enhanced premium tax credits expire at the end of last year.
“When there is so much uncertainty, insurers are raising premiums higher than they otherwise would be, and the end result is that consumers are footing a larger bill for their premiums if they’re not receiving federal tax credits,” said Matthew McGough, a policy analyst at KFF for the Program on the ACA.
While people at the lowest income levels have other federal subsidies to soften the blow, enrollees with incomes at 400 percent or more of the federal poverty level (just under $64,000 for a single person in 2026) lost subsidies entirely when the enhanced credits expired and, therefore, face the full increase in premiums.
The higher costs caused many healthier enrollees to leave the exchanges in 2026, leaving behind a smaller number of enrollees who are somewhat sicker and more expensive to cover on average.
The sicker risk pool drove insurers to raise premiums by 4 percentage points in 2026 and is expected to lead to a similar increase in 2027.
The loss of the enhanced subsidies also means the federal government is spending more money on the existing subsidies, because there is now a larger pool of people than last year that are facing the full cost of health insurance on the individual market.
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