Open enrollment began Saturday for healthcare insurance through Affordable Care Act marketplaces, and policyholders are bracing for big premium increases amid subsidy losses.
This year, a record 24 million Americans got their coverage through the ACA, commonly referred to as Obamacare, which debuted in 2010. Around 17 million people signed up for coverage in 30 states with roughly 7 million utilizing plans run by their states.
The website opened Tuesday on healthcare.gov.
In most states, open enrollment runs through Jan. 15, though Dec. 15 is the deadline for coverage to start on Jan. 1.
The beginning and end dates to enroll through the marketplaces vary for states running their coverage.
Users are facing a double whammy of rising costs because of rising hospital care and prescription costs, and the expiration of enhanced subsidies through tax credits from the federal government.
The government has been shut down since Oct. 1 as Democrats want the subsidies to be extended to at least next year after being dropped in the spending bill signed into law in July.
The enhanced subsidies were initially introduced under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and were extended through 2025 by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
The Congressional Budget Office projects 3.8 million people will drop their coverage and become uninsured annually over the next eight years if the subsidies are not extended.
“It’s a high-risk situation for people,” Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., told NBC News.
