If you buy your health insurance through the marketplace, brace yourself for a much bigger bill. The enhanced tax credits that quietly held down premiums for millions of people have expired, and the change is landing squarely on household budgets. On average, analysts estimate marketplace enrollees will pay roughly double what they did before, about $1,000 more a year.
Why marketplace premiums are jumping now
The Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits, first added in 2021 to make coverage cheaper for a broad swath of buyers, expired at the end of 2025 and lapsed on January 1, 2026. Congress chose not to extend them. According to a KFF analysis, that decision raises what marketplace enrollees pay out of pocket by about 114% on average, or roughly $1,016 more per year.
It is worth being clear about what changed. The underlying price of the insurance is one thing, but the amount you personally pay depends on the credit that gets subtracted from it. When that credit shrinks or disappears, your share of the premium can climb sharply even if the sticker price of the plan barely moves. For many families, that math effectively doubles the monthly payment.
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The return of the subsidy cliff
One of the harshest parts of the change is the return of what is known as the subsidy cliff. The enhanced credits had removed that cliff; with them gone, people earning more than four times the federal poverty line now lose all premium assistance, not just a portion of it. That is a steep drop-off, because a household one dollar over the line can go from meaningful help to paying full price.
This tends to hit self-employed people, early retirees who are not yet eligible for Medicare, and middle-income families who do not get coverage through an employer. For them, the loss of the credit is not a modest trim to the budget, it can mean an unexpected four-figure jump in annual costs with no phase-out to soften the blow.
Why older enrollees get hit hardest
The pain is not spread evenly across ages. Older enrollees face the steepest increases, because premiums for people in their late 50s and 60s are already higher to begin with. KFF estimates a 60-year-old middle-income enrollee could pay $10,000 or more in additional costs.
That figure is a gut punch for anyone in the stretch between leaving a job and qualifying for Medicare at 65. These are often people who planned an early retirement around predictable health costs, and the expired credits pull the rug out from under those plans. If you are in that age band and buy your own coverage, this is the group the numbers say to watch most closely.
Do not assume you get no help at all
The headlines about doubling premiums can leave the impression that marketplace subsidies have vanished entirely, and that is not the case. The enhanced boost is gone, but the original ACA premium tax credits still exist, and most marketplace enrollees still receive some amount of assistance. It would be a costly mistake to skip enrolling because you assumed you now qualify for nothing.
The people who lose all subsidy are specifically those above 400% of the federal poverty line, where the cliff bites hardest. Below that threshold, help is still on the table, though it is smaller than it was. The only way to know your actual number is to run your own income through the marketplace and see what credit it produces, rather than guessing from a national average that may not describe your household.
What to do before 2027 open enrollment
The next real decision point is open enrollment for 2027 coverage, which opens November 1, 2026. That is your window to reshape your costs, and going in prepared is the difference between overpaying and finding the least-bad option. Do not simply let your current plan auto-renew, because the plan that fit last year may be a poor value now that the credit math has changed.
Start by comparing plans across the metal tiers. Moving from a gold or platinum plan to a silver or bronze one lowers the premium in exchange for higher out-of-pocket costs when you actually use care, which can be the right trade if you are generally healthy. Also look at whether an HSA-eligible high-deductible plan makes sense, since it pairs a lower premium with a tax-advantaged account you can use for medical bills. It is also worth checking whether your income now qualifies you for Medicaid or another special program, since a drop in earnings can open doors that were closed before.
Getting every dollar of credit you still qualify for
Even with the enhanced credits gone, the original ACA subsidies still exist for people under the income threshold, so it is worth making sure you claim what you are owed. The key is your income estimate. The marketplace calculates your credit based on the income you report, and an estimate that is off can cost you help you actually qualify for, or leave you owing money back at tax time.
Before you enroll, pull together a realistic projection of next year’s income and update it in your application rather than carrying over an old number. If your income dropped, you may qualify for more help than you expect. If it rose, knowing that now lets you plan for the bill instead of being blindsided. The credits shrinking is not something a single household can undo, but choosing the right plan and reporting income accurately are two levers still firmly in your hands.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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