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.
At my job
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.
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”
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.
What a ridiculous way to run a society.
Already couldn’t afford it so I don’t have insurance, its now 40% higher and I still can’t afford it. Haha! I am immune to the economic implications. If only I was immune to communicable diseases.
Follow me for more financial tricks they dont want you to know. 🙃
It screws up the entire economy and society, too. If you can’t afford insurance, you certainly can’t afford the hospital bills. And that’s taking money and resources from people that are actually doing something good for society. And it stresses a system that’s already limited, which is why the emergency room always has a multi-hour wait. And it stresses your job, because you need an unplanned absence.
ER employee here, multi-hour wait times aren’t caused by people without insurance seeking care, they’re caused by admitted patients taking up all the ER rooms. The ER would function great even with pretty substantial patient volumes because many of the primary-care tier complaints can be seen and discharged relatively quickly, many not needing anything more than a closet to speak in private for 10 minutes and imaging or prescription. In the hospital I work at, and every hospital in the city, and probably every hospital in your city, the floor that holds the most non-ER patients is the ER.
The reason for this is because shit runs downhill, and there’s not enough inpatient infrastructure because it’s expensive during the summer to have excess beds not in use just to have a reserve for flu season. This matters because even nonprofit hospitals are run to make money to pay our CEO ~50x more than the lowest paid employee, which- while a respectable ratio compared to most- is wholly unnecessary. nobody needs a multimillion a year paycheck except perhaps pediatric surgeons with a good bedside manner.
. . . that’s taking money and resources from people that are actually doing something good for society.
What the actual fuck.
What’s your plan on paying for your funeral due to lack of health care? That cost will just go to relatives.
Easy
Green burials go brrrr 🔥
Not OP, but funerals are very cheap compared to any serious illness or injury. Because of this, there are a number of conspiracy theories that things that could injure you are instead designed to kill you.
Some very quick googling says that a typical funeral is under $10k. You’ll rack that up every single day that you’re in the hospital.
Oh no. The thing that everyone warned would happen for months. It’s happening.
To everyone who voted against Trump: you have my warmest sympathies.
To everyone else: have the day you voted for.Are third party voters in the first or second category?
Solidly second. They knew what they were doing as they were doing it.
Absolutely.
Second lol
The only solution to this is to abolish insurance companies entirely and implement single payer instead.
If there’s a Dem running in a primary for ‘26 and they aren’t saying this, vote for someone else.
Maybe one should market Trumps “big beautiful bill” as “unaffordable care act”.
The Dems should pay you a cool million dollars for consulting instead.
I would not mind the money…
You’d even be able to afford health insurance for a short while!
No problem here. I live in a civilized country.
I like it.
Huh. Other modern, wealthy countries don’t have entire families of their citizens regularly bankrupted due to unexpected medical issues. Weird, wonder what they’re doing differently…
That’s what happens when the citizenry is too cowardly to do anything about it.
Not cowardly - most Americans are brainwashed to not realize there’s a problem.
Most of the Democrat party is bought off.
Actual civil engagement is replaced by brain rot arguments online.
If only there was something that could have been done to prevent this. Ah well.
deleted by creator
And yet somehow people keep voting for Republicans. Republicans make everything worse. Even for the rich, in the medium term, when they have sick workers or get shot dead on the street.
Who could have possibly foreseen this?
The people of Metternich for one.
Americans voted for this. Have the day you voted for. It’s just a shame that it affects all the others who tried to warn you, tried to stop you, and were disenfranchised.
I would very much like the day I voted for. Maybe even the day I voted for in spring 2016…
