OLYMPIA, Wash. — Fourteen health insurers have requested an average rate change of 21.2% for Washington state's 2026 Individual Health Insurance Market. Insurers base their requested rate changes on assumptions they make about the services their policyholders will use and the cost to deliver that care. The health plans and proposed rate changes are currently under review by the Office of the Insurance Commissioner.
Wellpoint Washington, Inc. is new to the market and plans to sell in Grays Harbor, King and Spokane counties.
Congress Urged to Renew Expiring Enhanced Premium Tax Credits and Prevent Unnecessary Increases in Health Care Costs for New Jersey Residents
Over 450,000 Get Covered New Jersey enrollees would be impacted by loss of expanded financial help
New Jerseyans could lose more than half a billion dollars in federal support and face higher health insurance costs
TRENTON — Warning about significant health insurance premium increases for over 450,000 New Jerseyans, New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance Commissioner Justin Zimmerman sent a letter to New Jersey’s Congressional delegation strongly urging them to extend the expiring federal enhanced premium tax credits that have enabled hundreds of thousands of New Jersey residents to enroll in quality, affordable health insurance through Get Covered New Jersey, the State’s Official Health Insurance Marketplace.
Rep. Boyle: The one thing I would point out, though, is this bill is actually significantly worse [than the GOP's ACA repeal attempt in 2017], because this piece of legislation will throw 13.5 million, almost 14 million Americans off their healthcare.
First, you're cutting people off Medicaid. But second, this does include very deep cuts to Obamacare as well. And finally, I have breaking news for you tonight, that literally just came out in the last few minutes as I've been sitting here: The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the official authority on these figures, has now confirmed that this bill, in addition to Medicaid cuts, in addition to Obamacare cuts, includes $500 BILLION WORTH OF CUTS TO MEDICARE that is now in this bill as well.
With potential Federal cuts to Medicaid on the horizon, renewing enhanced premium tax credits to ensure affordable insurance through the marketplace takes on greater significance
AUGUSTA— The Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Office of the Health Insurance Marketplace (OHIM) today announced its support for renewing the enhanced premium tax credits for consumers of the health insurance marketplace.
The enhanced premium tax credits, which were first implemented in 2021 through the American Rescue Act and extended in the Inflation Reduction Act are set to expire at the end of this year unless Congress acts. Allowing these federal tax credits to expire will result in higher health insurance premiums for Maine consumers, potentially putting health coverage out of reach for thousands of Mainers. Overall, the enhanced tax credits are saving Mainers a conservative estimate of nearly $90 million in health care premium savings this year.
Covered California expresses deep concern regarding the proposed health provisions in the reconciliation bill moving through the House of Representatives.
If enacted, the legislation would have devastating consequences to the health, well-being and financial security of hundreds of thousands of Californians who would lose access to affordable health insurance. It would also lead to greater strain on the health care system and increased costs for individuals and businesses throughout the state.
Green Mountain Care Board Receives 2026 QHP Rate Requests Amid Rising Health Care Costs
Montpelier, VT – On May 12, 2025, the Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB) received the 2026 individual and small group health insurance premium rate filings from BlueCross and BlueShield of Vermont and MVP Health Plan. The filings will be posted on GMCB’s rate review website. The average rate increases being requested are shown below:
Next up: Premiums, Advance Premium Tax Credits (APTC) and Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) assistance.
Nationally, the average unsubsidized premiums for 2025 exchange-based Open Enrollment Period enrollees is $619/month, up $14 or just 2.3% from $605 last year.
This is a noteworthy because 2025 ACA exchange premiums "should" have increase by more like 6-7% on average. This discrepancy is mostly because that 6-7% assumed that 100% of those enrolled in each plan in 2024 renewed the exact same policy (without any attrition or additional enrollment), which of course is never the case...even if total QHP selections were identical year over year, not all of the enrollees would be the same people, millions of them would switch to different policies and so on.
New Hampshire has the lowest average ACA premiums for the second year in a row at $469/month, while West Virginia once again has by far the highest at a whopping $1,170/month...up $51 from last year. Again, these are the unsubsidized average prices.
Every year around this time I start my annual individual & small group market rate filing analysis project. This involves spending months painstakingly tracking every insurance carrier rate filing for the upcoming year to determine just how much average insurance policy premiums on the individual market are projected to change.
Carriers tendency to jump in and out of the market, repeatedly revise their requests, and the confusing blizzard of actual filing forms sometimes make it next to impossible to find the specific data I need.
The actual data I need to compile my estimates are actually fairly simple, however. I really only need three pieces of information for each carrier: How many effectuated enrollees they have in ACA-compliant policies this year; the average projected rate change for those policies; and, ideally, a breakout of the rationale behind the changes.
Usually the reasons given are fairly vague things like "increased morbidity" (ie, a sicker risk pool) or the like. Sometimes, however, there's a very specific reason given for some or all of the premium changes. Major examples of this include:
With all the understandable focus on Congressional Republicans efforts to effectively end Medicaid coverage for nearly 21 million Americans enrolled via ACA expansion, there's been much less attention paid to the other looming threat to healthcare coverage: The expiration of the upgraded financial subsidies for ~24.2 million ACA exchange enrollees, which are currently scheduled to end this New Year's Eve.
As I've explained numerous times before, the ACA's original premium subsidy formula was always far too stingy to make individual market policies affordable for many people...and worse yet, the subsidies cut off entirely for households making more than 4 times the Federal Poverty Level (FPL).
It was in early 2021 that Congressional Democrats passed & President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which among other things dramatically expanded & enhanced the original premium subsidy formula of the Affordable Care Act, finally bringing the financial aid sliding income scale up to the level it should have been in the first place over a decade earlier.
In addition to beefing up the subsidies along the entire 100 - 400% Federal Poverty Level (FPL) income scale, the ARPA also eliminated the much-maligned "Subsidy Cliff" at 400% FPL, wherein a household earning even $1 more than that had all premium subsidies cut off immediately, requiring middle-class families to pay full price for individual market health insurance policies.
Here's what the original ACA premium subsidy formula looked like compared to the current, enhanced subsidy formula:
