Higher Premium Payments or Higher Deductibles: The Tradeoffs ACA Enrollees Face

(By Emma Wager Twitter, Justin Lo, and Cynthia Cox Twitter for The Kaiser Family Foundation published January 14, 2026)

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits expired on January 1st, 2026, causing premium payments to increase significantly for many Americans enrolled in ACA exchange plans. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that a permanent extension of the enhanced tax credits would increase the number of people with health insurance by 3.8 million in 2035. Without the extension, the CBO anticipated insurers on the individual market would raise rates with the expectation that some healthier people would drop coverage rather than pay a significantly higher monthly amount. The total number of people who have enrolled in the ACA Marketplaces and paid for at minimum one month of coverage won’t be available until the summer of 2026. Continue reading here…

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