Millions of Americans are going uninsured this year since ObamaCare premiums went up since Biden era subsidies expired. This was the contentious issue that led to Democrats shutting down the government for 42 days last Fall. The Biden Administration temporarily increased the government subsidies during the Covid pandemic but they expired at the end of 2025.
Anna Wilde Mathews, writing for The Wall Street Journal, says nearly one in 10 people with Affordable Care Act healthcare plans (ObamaCare) last year dropped health insurance altogether, after premium costs rose sharply according to a new survey.
Most of those who remained in ACA plans reported larger out-of-pocket healthcare expenses in the form of higher copays, coinsurance or deductibles, according to the survey from health-research nonprofit KFF. About one-sixth of those who still have ACA coverage, or 17%, weren’t sure they would be able to afford their new premium payments for the entire year, indicating more people might drop insurance as the year goes on.
The survey is the broadest look yet at the fallout from the end of enhanced ACA subsidies, which lapsed at the start of this year, increasing premium bills for millions of enrollees. The higher healthcare costs have forced many ACA policyholders to make hard choices as grocery and gas prices are also rising.
The survey was conducted by Kaiser Family Foundation, a California based company associated with Kaiser Permanente, the large managed healthcare organization. The survey found that the most common reason cited for dropping insurance was cost.
“Not only is there significant coverage loss, but there could be more to come,” said Cynthia Cox, a senior vice president at KFF. She said the survey results were “about on target” compared with what had been expected. Of those surveyed, 69% still have ACA policies this year. Beyond the 9% who said they are uninsured, 22% of respondents now have some other type of coverage, such as Medicare or employer-sponsored insurance.
If you’re not careful, you might conclude that the solution to this problem is increasing government subsidies. That’s certainly the Democrats priority. But throwing good money after bad is never a good solution. The solution is lowering the cost of the premiums by making substantial changes in the system that save money.
There are other problems with this survey. Take the example they give in the article. Kelly Rose, 59 years old, who lives near Orlando, Fla., became uninsured this year because she couldn’t pay the roughly $1,700 monthly bill to keep the ACA plan she had in 2025. “It’s more than my mortgage,” she said. The cost is a huge jump compared with 2025, when she got help from a subsidy, she said.
Though her job at a bank offers health insurance, she said she missed the enrollment window in the fall because she had planned to keep the ACA plan, not realizing how much it would cost. In other words, she had a chance to get employer-sponsored insurance and she passed on that expecting ObamaCare to be cheaper. When government healthcare undermines the private system, as it did in this case, everybody loses including the patient and the taxpayers.
I have written on the flaws in the ACA before (Missteps to Fixing Healthcare) and this article simply illustrates the problems. It doesn’t make the argument for increasing government subsidies.
