Healthcare Access: Policy, Tech, and Price Increases

Emma, you work on research covering the ACA and health care costs.

Can you share with us a bit about what you do?

Yes.

So I work for KFF, which, as Linda explained, is a nonpartisan health policy research organization.

My focus is primarily on the U.S. health care system, particularly on the private individual and employer-sponsored health insurance, which includes the exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act.

So we keep track of which insurers are in the ACA marketplace, how much their premiums are that they're charging, and who is purchasing that coverage.

And speaking of those premiums, KFF was one of the groups that predicted a major increase in the ACA premium payments after Congress did not extend the enhanced subsidies.

Can you explain what we're seeing right now and just how much higher are premiums for the typical individual or family on ACA going up this year?

Well, last fall, we predicted that if everyone who was enrolled in the ACA marketplaces stuck with their same plans for 2026, we would see the average premium payment more than double.

And that was just the average.

So in some cases, people could see their payments triple or even more.

But of course, not everyone keeps their same plan every year, especially in a year where these big changes in federal policy have happened.

Our polling suggests a lot of people have switched to a cheaper plan or they've left the ACA marketplace altogether.

So all that to say, it's still a bit too early to tell what's actually happened to the average premium payment amount.

We'll get more of that data later in the summer.

But we know from the polling that our organization has done that 80% of returning marketplace enrollees say their costs in 2026 are higher than their costs in 2025.

And over half of them say that they're a lot higher.

So we do know that people are seeing pretty big increases in the amount that they're paying for coverage.

With first quarter earnings reports from large insurers revealing enrollment in Affordable Care Act insurance, commonly known as Obamacare, is down by several million people.

Can you share what kind of impact this is having?

Yes.

So we do know enrollment has declined substantially since 2025.

And of course, the first question that you ask is what happened to those people who dropped coverage? Where are they going? So our polling suggests that some of them are able to successfully transition to another source of coverage.

For example, some got on an employer-sponsored plan, which could be through a spouse, or it could be due to them changing jobs to one that offers insurance.

But a significant portion didn't get on another plan.