Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service have proposed rules that would limit the premium tax credit, the subsidy that lowers monthly health insurance costs on the marketplace, to U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals and certain lawfully present noncitizens, beginning in 2027. Treasury announced the proposed regulations on October 14, and the Federal Register’s public inspection list shows the proposal, document 2026-21056, scheduled for publication on October 15. A proposal is not a final rule, and nothing changes for a marketplace enrollee until the rules are finished.

Who has a decision to make

For a household shopping the marketplace, the practical question is whether premium help is still available in 2027. Citizens and nationals sit inside the class the proposal names. The open question belongs to households with a lawfully present noncitizen in them, because the final definition of “certain lawfully present noncitizens” decides who keeps the credit. Until that text is final, those households can only gather their immigration documents and watch the Federal Register for the final version.

HealthCare.gov says Open Enrollment starts November 1, and the proposed limits would begin in 2027, so the rule and the sign-up season arrive close together.

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What Treasury and the IRS put on the table

Treasury’s release, titled “Treasury and IRS Move to Protect Health Care Benefits for Eligible Americans,” says the changes come from what it calls the Working Families Tax Cuts. The proposed regulations do three things, according to the release:

• They restrict premium tax credit eligibility to U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals and certain lawfully present noncitizens.
• They add eligibility checks for people claiming the credit.
• They set new verification criteria for advance premium tax credit payments, the version of the credit applied during the year instead of at tax time.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the release: “Hardworking American taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize health care for people who are ineligible under federal law.” IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank Bisignano said the added verification is meant to curb improper claims, and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz called the rules a step toward stopping waste and fraud. Treasury also says changes to marketplace procedures that the verification needs are expected in parallel proposed regulations from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Treasury’s announcement does not list which lawfully present groups would stay eligible, and it gives no comment deadline. The Federal Register notice carries the regulatory text.

The checks the marketplace already announced

The proposal lands on top of verification steps the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced on September 22. CMS said it had canceled about 315,000 unauthorized enrollments covering more than 760,000 individuals, with roughly $2.2 billion in subsidies expected to be returned, according to its announcement. Treasury’s release cites the same 760,000 and $2.2 billion.

The same CMS announcement lists the new requirements on the application side. Applications that involve an agent or broker must include a Social Security number or an immigration document number that CMS can verify for every applicant except newborns. All existing agents and brokers must complete identity proofing through Login.gov or ID.me, and CMS issued 569 notices of intent to terminate to agents and brokers who filed 2026 applications without key applicant information such as Social Security numbers.

Those steps and the proposed credit rule are separate actions. The September measures concern who is enrolled and who helped enroll them. The October 14 proposal concerns who qualifies for the credit at all.

A separate 30-day window for flagged enrollees

On the same day as the Treasury release, CMS said it had identified 189,000 people with subsidized marketplace coverage who also had duplicate Medicare, Medicaid or CHIP coverage, or who were deceased. CMS says those enrollees get 30 days to dispute the finding, and can still appeal after that, according to the CMS release. That process runs on its own track and does not depend on the proposed Treasury rule.

Checking 2027 marketplace eligibility before November 1

HealthCare.gov is the free place to apply and the route the marketplace uses. Its home page says Open Enrollment starts November 1 and offers a checklist for preparing everything needed to apply that day.

For a household with any noncitizen member, the useful preparation is practical: gather each applicant’s Social Security number or immigration document number, since CMS says applications through an agent or broker must carry a verifiable one, and keep the documents together for the application.

The date to watch for the rule itself is the Federal Register entry for document 2026-21056, which carries the proposal’s full text. Until a final rule is published, the credit rules that apply at enrollment are the ones in force now.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.