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The ACA MarketplaceS

Change in February effectuated enrollment, by state, 2025-2026

How Has ACA Marketplace Enrollment Changed Across States in 2026?

ACA Marketplace enrollment fell this year in every state except New Mexico, which was the only state to fully replace the enhanced premium tax credits that expired last year with a state-funded subsidy, according to a new KFF analysis of effectuated enrollment data. The Marketplace enrollment decline—the first in seven years—follows several years of rapid enrollment growth and coincides with the end of the enhanced federal subsidies.

How Much and Why ACA Marketplace Premiums Are Going Up in 2027

ACA Marketplaces insurers are proposing a median premium increase of 15% in 2027, according to KFF’s updated analysis of 276 insurers with publicly available filings across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. This is the second consecutive year of double-digit premium hikes. Last year’s median nationwide proposed rate change was 18%, and the median finalized rate change was 20%. While this proposed rate change is lower than last year, it represents the second-highest requested rate change since 2018, as premium growth had been relatively flat in this market for several years.

About the ACA

Promotional image for KFF video How Affordable is the Affordable Care Act

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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  • Medicare Now and in the Future

    Issue Brief

    Download PDF Issue Medicare is a valuable source of health insurance for nearly 45 million Americans – mainly seniors ages 65 and older, but also 7 million younger adults with permanent disabilities.  Before Medicare was signed into law in 1965, about half of all seniors lacked hospital insurance.  Today, virtually all people ages 65 and over are covered by Medicare.  Medicare is a popular program, but faces a number of issues and challenges in the…

  • Health Affairs Article: Florida’s Medicaid Reform: Informed Consumer Choice?

    Report

    Health Affairs Article: Florida's Medicaid Reform: Informed Consumer Choice? Florida's Medicaid reform program aims to encourage consumer choice and market competition by giving health plans new authority to vary benefits and having enrollees choose among the different plans. However, about three in 10 enrollees were not aware that they needed to make this health plan choice and over half of those who were aware reported difficulty making a plan choice, according to a Health Affairs…

  • Trends in Access to Care Among Working-Age Adults, 1997-2006

    Issue Brief

    Trends in Access to Care Among Working-Age Adults, 1997-2006 This policy brief finds about 39 million working-age adults nationally reported cost as a barrier to receiving needed health care in 2006, a number that grew by an average of 1 million people annually over the decade studied. Uninsured working-aged adults experienced the most consistent erosion over the 10 years, resulting in a widening gap in access to care between insured and uninsured adults. Policy Brief…

  • Florida Medicaid Reform Waiver: Early Findings and Current Status

    Issue Brief

    Florida Medicaid Reform Waiver: Early Findings and Current Status This policy brief provides an overview of the Florida Medicaid reform and a summary of available research findings to date from various evaluators of the program. It was issued at the same time as a separate Health Affairs article highlighting findings from Kaiser Family Foundation's 2006-2007 Survey of Florida Medicaid Beneficiaries. The Foundation, in collaboration with the Urban Institute and the University of Florida, is conducting…

  • The Decline in the Uninsured in 2007: Why Did It Happen and Can It Last?

    Issue Brief

    This policy brief examines the underlying shifts in health insurance coverage in 2007, which resulted in a 1.5 million decrease in the number of uninsured people under age 65, due to increased public coverage. This includes about 300,000 in Massachusetts, which implemented its comprehensive health reform that year. The brief also projects that the current economic downturn and rising unemployment rate likely will cause the number of uninsured to grow by at least 2 million…

  • 2008 Update on Consumers’ Views of Patient Safety and Quality Information

    Poll Finding

    2008 Update on Consumers' Views of Patient Safety and Quality Information An updated examination of consumers' views on health care quality information reveals major challenges remain in providing the public with comparative quality information and encouraging its use. The 2008 Update on Consumers' Views of Patient Safety and Quality Information finds that three in 10 (30%) Americans say they have seen health care quality comparisons of health insurance plans, hospitals, or doctors in the past…

  • Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008 — September 2008

    Poll Finding

    The latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008 finds that health care has crept up in importance as an election issue in recent months among a key voting group: political independents, who ranked it as highly as Democrats did in this poll.  Roughly one in four (26%) independents rank health care as one of the top issues they would "most like to hear the presidential candidates talk about." Health care's importance has risen among independents by…

  • 2008 Presidential Candidates: Health Care Issues Side-by-Side

    Other Post

    Health care has been an important issue in the 2008 presidential campaign and the candidates have staked out positions on key health care issues. Both major party candidates have developed comprehensive health care reform proposals addressing health coverage and access, rising health care costs and health care quality. The side-by-side comparison available here focuses on important health care issues not necessarily addressed in the candidates' health care reform proposals. It was prepared by the Kaiser…

  • Pulling It Together: What Do We Want Health Insurance To Be?

    Perspective

    Trends in the health insurance marketplace show substantial growth in high deductible health plans, especially among smaller firms, where 35% of workers are now covered by plans with a deductible of $1,000 or more. That's according to our recently released employer health benefits survey, which we have been conducting now for ten years. The majority of these plans are simply high deductible health plans; only a minority are so-called "consumer driven" plans with savings accounts.…

  • Covering the Uninsured: Options for Reform

    Issue Brief

    Download PDF Key Facts on the Uninsured In 2007, 45 million nonelderly people in the United States lacked health coverage More than eight in ten uninsured people (81%) come from working families About two-thirds of the nonelderly uninsured are from low-income families (income below 200% of poverty, about $42,400 for a family of 4 in 2007) More than one in three people (35%) living in poverty are uninsured, compared with one in twenty people (5%)…