This is the best OEP ever for the ACA for several reasons:
The expanded/enhanced premium subsidies first introduced in 2021 via the American Rescue Plan, which make premiums more affordable for those who already qualified while expanding eligibility to millions who weren't previously eligible, are continuing through the end of 2025 via the Inflation Reduction Act;
A dozen states are either launching, continuing or expanding their own state-based subsidy programs to make ACA plans even more affordable for their enrollees;
100,000 or more DACA recipients are finally eligible to enroll in ACA exchange plans & receive financial assistance!
Quick ACA Update: More than 15.6 million Americans have enrolled in a plan on the federally run exchanges so far — compared to roughly 16 million Americans last year.
Notably, this small drop follows several important CMS actions over the past year to combat fraudulent and improper enrollments, which have already removed more than enough people from premium subsidies who are covered elsewhere to account for the modest enrollment change. That said, there is a politically motivated lawsuit that has paused critical actions to make sure Biden-era improper enrollments are fully knocked out.
IMPORTANT NOTE: For those who need insurance and have not already signed up — go to HealthCare.Gov to see if you qualify and what types of plans you can get. Most Americans can access a plan for $21 a month!
Covered California is encouraging all uninsured Californians to sign up for health insurance by Dec. 31.
The open-enrollment period for 2026 ends on Jan. 31, but to have insurance in place for January, consumers need to enroll by the end of the year. Covered California’s over 1.9 million enrollees also have until Dec. 31 to make any changes to their coverage for next year.
It has been a unique open enrollment with the Enhanced Premium Tax Credits set to expire heading into 2026. Since their introduction in 2021, the enhanced assistance has helped double enrollment nationally under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and by over 23 percent in California.
So far this open enrollment, 123,461 Californians have signed up for 2026 coverage as of Dec. 20, marking a 30 percent decrease over the same period last year.
As I've noted before: While I include the passive/auto-renewal number for completeness sake, that number won't really be relevant until after the deadline for January 1st coverage passes (which was December 15th in most states, but not until 12/23 in MA & 12/31 in CA, IL, MD, NV, NJ, NM, PA, RI & VA).
More important for the moment is the total number of active enrollments, which includes both new enrollees as well as current enrollees who log into their account and actively select a plan for 2026.
In California, those come to 535,349 combined. This also means that only 23% of current enrollees had actively re-enrolled as of 12/13.
As of the same point last year (actually 1 day more; the data from last year is as of 12/14), Covered CA was reporting:
The Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Office of the Health Insurance Marketplace (OHIM) will release biweekly updates on plan selections through CoverME.gov, Maine’s Health Insurance Marketplace.
Plan selections provide a snapshot of activity by new and returning consumers who have selected a plan for 2026. “Plan selections” become “enrollments” once consumers have paid their first monthly premium to begin coverage. These numbers are subject to change as consumers may modify or cancel plans after their initial selection.
The deadline to select a plan for coverage beginning January 1, 2026 is December 15, 2025. Consumers who select a plan between December 16, 2025 and January 15, 2026 will have coverage beginning February 1, 2026.
We're now over the hump: The initial deadline for people to enroll in ACA healthcare coverage starting on January 1st has passed in most states.
HOWEVER, there's some important caveats to this, as well as some last-minute deadline extensions in a couple of states, so let's dig in...
If you live in IDAHO, last night was the one and only Open Enrollment Period deadline.
This means that if you didn't actively select a plan for 2026, current enrollees are stuck with whatever plan Your Health Idaho automatically renewed theme into, while uninsured residents who didn't sign up by the deadline are mostly out of luck.
The exceptions to this for both categories are a) if they're members of a federally-recognized Native American tribe (or are Alaska Natives); or b) if they are (or become) eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). All of these are eligible to enroll year-round.
In my annual ACA Open Enrollment Guide, the first piece of advice is always to make sure you don't miss the deadline to enroll in healthcare coverage for the upcoming year.
I then list the various deadlines for people to get covered in each state, which is December 15th in most states for coverage starting January 1st (in a handful of states the deadline for January 1st coverage is as late as New Year's Eve).
I always include the caveat, though, that if you do miss that deadline, you still have an extra month or so (January 15th in most states) to enroll for coverage starting February 1st. This means that at worst, you'll have to "go bare" for the month of January (and pray you don't get sick or injured for those 31 days) before your coverage kicks in.
As I've noted before: While I include the passive/auto-renewal number for completeness sake, that number won't really be relevant until after the deadline for January 1st coverage passes (which is December 15th in most states, although not until 12/23 in MA & 12/31 in MD, NV, NJ, NM & RI).
More important for the moment is the total number of active enrollments, which includes both new enrollees as well as current enrollees who log into their account and actively select a plan for 2026.
In California, those come to 451,576 combined. This also means that only 22% of current enrollees had actively re-enrolled as of 12/06.
As of the same point last year (actually 1 day more; the data from last year is as of 12/07), Covered CA was reporting:
12/5/25: Update on Provider Network Information in Plan Comparison Tool
We are aware of several provider network inaccuracies in our Plan Comparison Tool. The inaccuracies are related to Anthem plans.
The network issues related to Anthem plans are limited to Northern Light providers. We expect the Anthem network to be corrected by December 16. In the interim, consumers may use Anthem's Provider Lookup Tool (external to CoverME.gov).
Oy...December 16th? That's the day after the initial Open Enrollment Deadline passes. Sheesh.
In yesterday's write-up about CMS posting the first official, state-by-state data breakout for the ongoing 2026 ACA Open Enrollment Period, I noted several possible reasons why so far enrollment is running a solid 11% ahead of the same point a year ago even with widespread knowledge of the enhanced federal tax credits expiring just 25 days from now:
Total 2025 enrollment was 13.4% higher than total 2024 enrollment; assuming a similar rate of net attrition over the course of the year, there should be around 13% more current enrollees who can potentially actively renew/re-enroll for 2026 to begin with. As it happens, re-enrollment is currently up around 14% over the same point a year ago.
There's been a MASSIVE amount of attention given to the ACA, the exchanges, Open Enrollment, etc etc this year due to the panicky headlines about the impending subsidy expiration and of course the 43-day long federal government shutdown which focused primarily on...the ACA, the exchanges, Open Enrollment and the impending subsidy expiration.
