Key Point: “Millions of Americans appear to be dropping Obamacare coverage in the months since Congress failed to extend the generous subsidies that had become a defining feature of the Affordable Care Act. Initial sign-ups had already fallen by about 1.2 million people. But insurance companies, state officials and industry analysts are reporting that many more have lost Obamacare coverage now that people are facing long-term higher costs.” 

New York Times: Since Congress Let Obamacare Subsidies Expire, Millions Are Dropping Coverage

By Reed Abelson and Margot Sanger-Katz

• Millions of Americans appear to be dropping Obamacare coverage in the months since Congress failed to extend the generous subsidies that had become a defining feature of the Affordable Care Act.

• Initial sign-ups had already fallen by about 1.2 million people. But insurance companies, state officials and industry analysts are reporting that many more have lost Obamacare coverage now that people are facing long-term higher costs.
  
• Many insurers and analysts are estimating overall declines of about 20 percent, dropping to around 19 million from the 24 million who were covered under the A.C.A. last year.
  
• In Georgia, where coverage had nearly tripled since Congress first authorized the extra financial help in 2021, state data show enrollment has fallen by more than a third.

• In many states, around 10 percent of people who are still insured have chosen less generous coverage by picking so-called bronze plans, which carry deductibles as high as $10,600 a year.
  
• When Joyce Rena Bumbray-Graves, a 63-year-old home care worker from Woodbridge, Va., saw premiums for her husband and herself more than double, from $544 a month to over $1,300, she had to give up her insurance.
  
• Megan Burkett, 49, a nurse practitioner in Arroyo Grande, Calif., dropped coverage for herself, her husband and her son in the face of escalating costs. … When she went to sign up for A.C.A. coverage for this year, she found the policy for her family would cost roughly $2,500 a month, in line with her mortgage payment. That contrasts with the $307 a month she paid when she qualified for a federal subsidy last year.

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