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Individual Market Enrollment Declined by 18% Since June 2025

Individual Market Enrollment Fell 18%, Suggesting Continued ACA Marketplace Losses

Enrollment in the individual health insurance market fell by 18%—over 4.6 million people—from 25.2 million in June 2025 to 20.5 million in June 2026. Falling individual market enrollment suggests further decline in ACA Marketplace enrollment this year, since Marketplace enrollees represent the vast majority of individual market coverage.

About the ACA

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Did the Affordable Care Act Make Health Care More Affordable?

The expiration of the ACA’s enhanced premium tax credits at the start of 2026, combined with rising insurer premiums, put a spotlight on health care affordability that extends beyond Marketplace enrollees. KFF’s Cynthia Cox examines the ACA’s record and the broader underlying question it raises: what’s a fair price for Americans people to pay for health care?

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  • Premium Assistance in Medicaid and CHIP: An Overview of Current Options and Implications of the Affordable Care Act

    Issue Brief

    Premium assistance is the use of public funds through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to purchase private coverage. States have pursued premium assistance with varied objectives, including covering parents not otherwise eligible for public coverage and promoting the use of private coverage. Implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) coverage expansions is likely to spark renewed interest in premium assistance options. This brief provides an overview of premium assistance options and examines…

  • Optimizing Medicaid Enrollment: Spotlight on Technology – Louisiana’s Express Lane Eligibility

    Issue Brief

    This piece looks at how Louisiana uses “express lane eligibility" to increase and streamline the enrollment of low-income children in its Medicaid program. It is the first in a Spotlight on Technology series profiling several states' innovative applications of technology to Medicaid enrollment efforts. The series illustrates a range of approaches that states can adopt to improve their systems now and to prepare for the expansion of Medicaid under health reform. Spotlight (.pdf)

  • Expanding Coverage to Adults through Medicaid Under Health Reform: Key Issues to Consider for Implementation

    Issue Brief

    The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured convened a roundtable discussion on June 23, 2010 with a group of federal and state officials and experts to discuss key issues related to reaching, enrolling and delivering care to adults in Medicaid under health reform. The discussion focused in particular on non-disabled adults without dependent children (often referred to as "childless adults") who have historically been ineligible for the program. When the new coverage goes into…

  • Side-by-Side Comparison of Major Health Care Reform Proposals

    Issue Brief

    On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and a week later, signed into law the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, which made some changes to the comprehensive health reform law. Summary of Final Health Care Reform Law (.pdf) Download a printable comparison of the new health reform law (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), the House-passed Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act…

  • An Introduction to Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility and Enrollment Performance Measures

    Issue Brief

    The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently established 12 new Medicaid and CHIP eligibility and enrollment performance indicators for states to report beginning in October 2013. These indicators provide insight into the performance of new eligibility and enrollment policies established under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In December 2013, CMS released initial reports for a subset of the indicators. This brief provides an overview of the new performance indicators; the initial data; and…

  • Key Findings from the Field: Early Experience with ACA Enrollment in Maryland and Nevada

    Issue Brief

    To learn more about the early ACA enrollment experience in two states, the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured and PerryUndem Research and Communication conducted focus groups in Baltimore, Maryland and Reno, Nevada in November 2013 with low- and moderate-income individuals who recently applied for health insurance and consumer assisters trained to help individuals enroll. This study builds on previous work that examined preparations for open enrollment in several states, including Maryland and Nevada,…

  • Coverage for Abortion Services and the ACA

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief, Coverage of Abortion Services and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), summarizes the major coverage provisions of the ACA that are relevant for women of reproductive age, reviews current federal and state policies on Medicaid and insurance coverage of abortion services as they relate to the ACA, and presents national and state estimates on the availability of abortion coverage for women who are newly eligible for Medicaid or private coverage through the Marketplaces…

  • Explaining Health Care Reform: Risk Adjustment, Reinsurance, and Risk Corridors

    Issue Brief

    This brief explains three provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) – risk adjustment, reinsurance, and risk corridors – that were intended to promote insurer competition on the basis of quality and value and promote insurance market stability, particularly in the early years of reform as the ACA marketplaces, also known as exchanges, were established.

  • Medicaid Enrollment Under the Affordable Care Act: Understanding the Numbers

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief walks through data recently released from Health and Human Services (HHS) and what it can and cannot tell us about the number of people that have applied for Medicaid since open enrollment for health insurance marketplaces began, how many have enrolled, and what the role of the ACA is in recent Medicaid coverage gains.