Health Insurance Is Now More Expensive Than the Mortgage for These Americans
Millions of Americans are starting to see their monthly health-insurance bills rise, a new pressure point for a nation still frustrated with the high cost of living. Many of those facing the most substantial dollar increases are middle-income Americans who buy health insurance through the marketplaces set up by the government’s Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.
Expanded subsidies for those insured under the ACA expired on Dec. 31—the central battle in last year’s record-long government shutdown. That shutdown ended with no resolution on the subsidies, and lawmakers haven’t passed legislation to revive them. Now, the newly calculated insurance bills are coming due, and Americans are having to figure out how to pay up, or go without.
Lenny and Mandee Wilson, who are 47 years old and live in Charleston, W.Va., paid $255 a month last year for a low-end ACA plan. Late last year, they learned their bill would be going up to $2,155 a month, a sum nearly triple their monthly mortgage payment of about $760.
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The couple faced such a big increase because they earn about $110,000 a year combined, or more than 400% of the federal poverty level. That group is hardest hit by the expiring subsidies. During the pandemic, Congress expanded subsidies for ACA plans to many households earning more than 400% of the poverty level—$62,600 for a single person or $128,600 for a family of four in the contiguous 48 states in 2025.
Middle-income earners without good options for workplace health insurance—like early retirees, independent contractors and small-business owners—were quick to sign up. Nonprofit KFF estimates that about 10% of ACA enrollees in 2025, or roughly 2.5 million people, have annual incomes above 400%. Now, with their subsidies disappearing, they generally make far too much money to qualify for Medicaid and are too young to enroll in Medicare.
Some increases are extreme. A hypothetical married couple of 63-year-olds living in Cheyenne, Wyo., making $85,000 a year, putting them right above the 400% threshold, would go from paying nothing for a low-end ACA plan to $3,417 a month, an amount that is about half of their total pretax income, according to an analysis from Norris.
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https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/aca-health-insurance-cost-subsidies-expire-37a595a9?st=pp1NBV&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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