Seven more states launch 2026 Open Enrollment Window Shopping
Wed, 10/15/2025 - 2:36pm
Last week I noted that six states have launched window shopping for the 2026 ACA Open Enrollment Period (OEP), allowing residents of the following states to plug their household information into their states ACA exchange website to see just how much their net health insurance premiums are going to increase starting January 1st, 2026:
- Georgia (Georgia Access)
- Idaho (Your Health Idaho)
Note: (Idaho also started letting eligible residents actually enroll starting on 10/15.) - Maryland (Maryland Health Connection)
- Nevada (Nevada Health Link)
- New York (NY State of Health)
- Virginia (VA Insurance Marketplace)
Today another seven states joined them by activating 2026 window shopping as well:
- California (Covered CA)
- Kentucky (kynect)
- Maine (CoverME)
- Minnesota (MNsure)
- New Mexico (BeWell NM)
- Oregon (OregonHealthCare.Gov)*
- Vermont (VT Health Connect)
*Oregon is still hosted on the federal ACA exchange for 2026 but OregonHealthCare.Gov will let you window shop.
I'll be posting an updated version of my annual ACA Open Enrollment Guide soon which will include a lot more detail about these and other states (and lord knows there's a lot of changes this year, most of them for the worse), but wanted to give residents of these states a heads up so they have time to plan.
Here's the window shopping launch date for all other states:
- "Mid October:" District of Columbia, Massachusetts
- October 27th: Illinois (via their brand-new state-based exchange)
- "Late October:" Connecticut
- November 1st: ALL OTHER STATES (this is also when actual enrollment begins in every state)
REMEMBER: While the combination of expiring federal subsidies and the Trump regime's so-called "Affordability & Integrity Rule" changes are gonna be devastating for most enrollees, there are still ways of at least somewhat dampening the blow for most enrollees.
There are a handful of states (including CA, MD & NM) which are backfilling some or all lost federal tax credits for many/most enrollees; others, like Illinois, Washington and (believe it or not) Arkansas are newly-implementing "Premium Alignment" policies which will mitigate the damage for many people.
In most cases, the best you can hope for will be to shop around for a potentially better value (or at least a less-draconian rate hike).
I'll have a lot more to say about this over the coming weeks.
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