Virginia becomes 10th state to offer additional subsidies to ACA enrollees to mitigate damage from GOP cuts

via Virginia Mercury:

About 200,000 Virginians will be eligible to tap into new state funding meant to offset costs for insurance through the state’s Affordable Care Act exchange, starting in November.

This means that participants could save about 70% on their monthly premium, after state lawmakers and Gov. Abigail Spanberger approved $150 million dollars for it in the state budget late last month.

The move comes after federal funding shifts triggered by Congress’ failure to renew expiring ACA subsidies. Thousands of Virginians have dropped their coverage so far this year as premiums have shot up.

Virginia’s Health Benefit Exchange estimates that about 100,000 Virginians have lost their health coverage this year as a result of higher premiums, according to a new press release.

“Most Virginians losing Marketplace coverage this year do not have any other options for health insurance coverage,” exchange director Keven Patchett said. “The new affordability program will go a long way toward helping to ease the cost burden, allowing more Virginia families to enroll in and maintain high-quality health coverage.”

The program targets Virginia households with incomes between 138% and 250% of the federal poverty level, which represents about 45% of people in the state who have lost their coverage this year, according to state data.

While some consumers enrolled in lower-tier plans with lower premiums, others were priced out or canceled their plans after a few months. Overall, enrollment dropped by 20% compared to last summer, the state exchange reported.

The funds will be available for eligible Virginians to tap into starting November 1 through Dec. 31.

First off, the phrasing of the highlighted snippets is a bit confusing, but:

• Effectuated ACA coverage was 362,514 as of June 2025 & 363,848 as of July 2025. A ~20% drop from either of those puts current effectuated enrollment at around ~290,000 people as of June/July 2026.

• This is actually only a net drop of around ~72,000, not ~100,000. The discrepancy is presumably because that ~100K figure doesn't include other Virginians who weren't previously enrolled who have gained coverage this year.

In any event, assuming that the "20% drop" compares June 2026 to June 2025, here's what that looks like visually:

This also means that the monthly average VA ACA enrollment is down around 46,000 people so far this year, or ~12.7%:

As for the new state subsidies, $150 million is actually pretty generous, but it still wouldn't fully replace all of the lost federal tax credits. According to an analysis by the state itself last fall, they'd have to come up with around $234 million to fully cover the lost subsidies. In addition, the press release specifies that the new state assistance will only be available to enrollees who earn up to 250% FPL, meaning that households over that income threshold are still pretty much screwed next year.

This also makes sense when you consider that Virginia's unsubsidized premiums have shot up over 20% this year, meaning it takes more funding to cover the gap of the lost tax credits for the same number of people than it did last year.

Regardless, this is still excellent news for the ~200,000 lower-income Virginians...assuming they can survive until January 1st, 2027, that is...