Adrienne Martin and her family are starting the New Year off without healthcare. The 47-year-old Texas mother had to make a difficult choice when she found out her monthly healthcare premium was increasing in 2026 from what she described as a manageable $630 (£467) to an unaffordable $2,400 (£1,781). Her husband depends on an IV medication to treat a blood-clotting disease that costs $70,000 a month without insurance. Knowing their benefits would expire, the family stockpiled the drug to survive the first few months of the year. It would be like paying two mortgage payments, she said of the new monthly price for healthcare. We can't pay $30,000 for insurance a year.
Ms. Martin and her family are not the only ones facing this conundrum. Millions of Americans will see their healthcare bills skyrocket when these subsidies, which were provided through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, expire. Some members of Congress on both sides of the aisle attempted to extend these subsidies into 2026, but Washington was gridlocked. A vote in the new year could offer hope, but until then, many like Ms. Martin will have to live without insurance or see their bills steeply increase.
About 24 million Americans buy health insurance through the ACA marketplace, and the majority were used to receiving tax credits to lower the monthly price. Those tax credits, also referred to as subsidies, were first introduced through former President Barack Obama's ACA in 2014 and expanded during Covid. The fight to extend the subsidies became the center of the longest government shutdown in US history earlier this year.
Maddie Bannister is among the Americans bracing for that. The California mother, who just had her second child, was paying $124 a month for her family of three in 2025. Now, with a new baby and no ACA subsidies, she is preparing to pay $908 a month. So many people are going to choose to be uninsured because it's cheaper to pay a penalty for being uninsured than it is to have healthcare, she said.
Stephanie Petersen also faced soaring costs, shifting from ACA coverage back to Medicaid as her premiums rose from $75 to $580.
A vote on the three-year extension of the ACA subsidies is expected the week of 5 January when Congress returns to Washington. However, until then, more than 27 million Americans are predicted to be without health insurance in 2026, as healthcare costs continue to rise.
Ms. Martin and her family are not the only ones facing this conundrum. Millions of Americans will see their healthcare bills skyrocket when these subsidies, which were provided through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, expire. Some members of Congress on both sides of the aisle attempted to extend these subsidies into 2026, but Washington was gridlocked. A vote in the new year could offer hope, but until then, many like Ms. Martin will have to live without insurance or see their bills steeply increase.
About 24 million Americans buy health insurance through the ACA marketplace, and the majority were used to receiving tax credits to lower the monthly price. Those tax credits, also referred to as subsidies, were first introduced through former President Barack Obama's ACA in 2014 and expanded during Covid. The fight to extend the subsidies became the center of the longest government shutdown in US history earlier this year.
Maddie Bannister is among the Americans bracing for that. The California mother, who just had her second child, was paying $124 a month for her family of three in 2025. Now, with a new baby and no ACA subsidies, she is preparing to pay $908 a month. So many people are going to choose to be uninsured because it's cheaper to pay a penalty for being uninsured than it is to have healthcare, she said.
Stephanie Petersen also faced soaring costs, shifting from ACA coverage back to Medicaid as her premiums rose from $75 to $580.
A vote on the three-year extension of the ACA subsidies is expected the week of 5 January when Congress returns to Washington. However, until then, more than 27 million Americans are predicted to be without health insurance in 2026, as healthcare costs continue to rise.
