From $479 to $2,800 a month for ACA health insurance next year

Summary

Ellen Allen, 63, needs health insurance to be able to keep paying for an expensive eye drop medicine that prevents blindness. Ellen Allen hide caption toggle caption Ellen Allen Next year, when her health care premium balloons, "it's gonna be a real hit," Ellen Allen says. "I'm worried about it." Allen lives near Charleston, W.Va., and directs a small nonprofit called West Virginians for Affordable Health Care. She buys her insurance on HealthCare.gov, and right now, the 63-year-old pays $479 a month. "I've been really happy with my coverage," she says. All of that is changing soon. The federal tax credit that makes the coverage affordable for Allen and millions of other Americans expires at the end of the year. The credit was a pandemic-era relief measure that has contributed to record enrollment in the insurance sold through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Average spike? 75% The average enrollee will see their premium costs increase 75%, according to an analysis of insurance filings by the nonpartisan health research organization KFF. For many people, those increases will be even higher. Allen, who's well-versed in these issues because of her job, used KFF's online calculator to estimate what her premium will be after the enhanced subsidies expire. "Next year it's gonna be like $2,800 a month," she says, just for her individual plan. Her work organization is too small to provide affordable group coverage. She estimates that she could have $10,000 in out-of-pocket costs on top of her high premium. She says it's still worth it to her to have the plan because she has expensive prescriptions. "Like an asthma medication [that] can run $700 a month. There's an eye drop medication that can be $800 a month," she says. "And these are the differences in keeping my vision, for example, so I have to do that." She has started setting money aside every month and directing it into a separate account to start building up savings for those high premiums next year. "Luckily I...