October 28, 2025 01:58 PM UTC

Thanks, Republicans: Health Insurance Premiums will DOUBLE in 2026

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• by: Colorado Pols

The sticker shock on 2026 health insurance costs has arrived, and it’s a doozy.

As the federal government shutdown enters a full month with no indication of a deal on the horizon, Republicans are starting to see the problems ahead even as they stonewall efforts by Democrats to extend federal subsides for the Affordable Care Act.

As Meg Wingerter reports for The Denver Post:

Premiums will double next year for Coloradans who buy their health insurance on the state’s individual market, with higher-income families facing increases of $10,000 or more, the Colorado Division of Insurance announced Monday.

Marketplace customers face a double hit this year. The monthly “sticker price” of health insurance is rising, typically due to the aging population and increased use of expensive care, including high-cost medications. And households will have to pay a larger share of that monthly cost than they have since the pandemic as the tax credits that subsidize insurance purchases revert to pre-COVID levels.

The average person who receives subsidies to buy their insurance through Connect for Health Colorado, the state-run marketplace, will have to pay 101% more in 2026 after accounting for both factors, according to the Division of Insurance.

The enhanced subsidies lowered the percentage of a person’s income that they had to put toward premiums. For example, an individual earning $35,000 per year previously had to pay 3% of their income, or $1,033 annually, for their insurance, according to the health policy group KFF. Next year, they’ll have to pay 7.5%, or about $2,615. [Pols emphasis]

That’s brutal. It’s going to be damn near impossible for someone making $35k per year to afford to spend $2,600 on health insurance premiums alone in 2026. As Wingerter continues, it’s obvious where this road ends up:

People earning more than four times the federal poverty line, or about $128,000 for a family of four, won’t receive any subsidies next year. For a family of four at that income level in Denver, premiums for a silver plan would rise $14,000, with greater increases in rural areas. The enhanced subsidies also phased out as income increased, but did so more gradually.

The division estimated about 75,000 of the 335,000 people who buy insurance on the state marketplace will opt to go without coverage, leaving them exposed to high medical bills if they have an unexpected illness or accident. [Pols emphasis]

People with serious medical issues will thus have to rely on hospital emergency rooms, where the cost of their care will be passed along to other consumers in one form or another. These shifting costs will mean higher rates for EVERYBODY, regardless of where you get your health insurance every year.

What was once a theoretical worry is having its “holy shit” moment as hundreds of thousands of Americans start to realize that their health insurance premiums are going to DOUBLE in 2026 thanks to Republican inaction in Congress. Sure, Republicans can (and will) continue attempting to blame Democrats for the shutdown impasse, but nobody is buying that a Republican trifecta in the federal government would somehow not be to blame for a government shutdown. Hell, Speaker Mike Johnson won’t even open the literal door for negotiations; Johnson has kept the House of Representatives out of session since Sept. 19.

Colorado Republicans such as Reps. Lauren Boebert (CO-04) and Gabe Evans (CO-08) don’t seem very concerned about the possibility that their constituents will soon be without health insurance (Evans has been particularly busy pointing out nonsense statistics in his arguments). But they might want to start at least pretending to care, because voters are going to be furious.

As The Associated Press reports:

The first caller on a telephone town hall with Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, leader of the House’s conservative Freedom Caucus, came ready with a question about the Affordable Care Act. Her cousin’s disabled son is at risk of losing the insurance he gained under that law, the caller said.

“Now she’s looking at two or three times the premium that she’s been paying for the insurance,” said the woman, identified as Lisa from Harford County, Maryland. “I’d love for you to elucidate what the Republicans’ plan is for health insurance?”

Harris, a seven-term Republican, didn’t have a clear answer. “We think the solution is to try to do something to make sure all the premiums go down,” he said, predicting Congress would “probably negotiate some off-ramp” later.

That’s a lot of words that could have been conveyed easier with a Gabe Evans-esque shrug of the shoulders. Voters know that Republicans are the reason for the government shutdown, and they know that Republicans are the reason their health insurance costs are about to double.

President Donald Trump and GOP leaders say they’ll consider extending the enhanced tax credits that otherwise expire at year’s end — but only after Democrats vote to reopen the government. In the meantime, people enrolled in the plans are already being notified of hefty premium increases for 2026.

As town halls fill with frustrated voters and no clear Republican plan emerges, the issue appears to be gaining political strength heading into next year’s midterm elections.

Congressional Republicans have two choices here: 1) They can run for re-election in 2026 as the party that nearly doubled health insurance costs in a budget standoff, or 2) They can run for re-election as the party that DID double health insurance costs for American families. The latter is a hell of a lot worse than the former, but it’s hard to know whether Republicans truly grasp this political peril or whether they are just going to ride or die with whatever President Trump tells them to do.

Democrats have been firm in demanding the extension of federal subsidies in exchange for reopening the federal government. They can’t back down now, particularly considering that Americans are really starting to grasp the problem. Republicans thought Democrats would have caved at this point; that didn’t happen, so the GOP needs to figure out a different strategy.

Whatever they decide, the calculation is relatively simple: Are Republicans willing to go back to voters in 2026 after gutting their family budgets and throwing the entire health care industry into chaos? From a purely strategic perspective, this path makes absolutely no sense.