Two things are true as of today: 2026 ACA Open Enrollment has ended...and 2026 ACA Open Enrollment is still going on (in some states).
The official Open Enrollment Period ended yesterday at midnight across 41 states...but residents of the other 9 (plus DC) still have time to enroll for coverage starting February 1st.
9/29/25: Welcome Paul Krugman subscribers! I greatly appreciate the shoutout by him but should add the following clarification:
Regarding the chart below which he reposted comparing the original ACA subsidy scale to the current version: You probably think that if the enhanced subsidies expire it will revert back to the original version, which would be bad enough. In fact, however, the Trump Regime has also made THAT version even worse, like so:
Last night, the 2026 ACA Open Enrollment Period (OEP) concluded across most states, including New Mexico (there are 10 other states with later deadlines).
BeWell NM, New Mexico's ACA exchange, is among the only ACA exchanges with ongoing daily enrollment data reports, last updated early this morning. Here's how they wrapped things up compared to the 2025 OEP (barring any clerical corrections in this year's data):
Overall enrollment in the Land of Enchantment is up a whopping 17%!
My son was in the 4th grade when Donald Trump first claimed to have a "much better" healthcare plan than "Obamacare" which would "cover everbody" and "save so much money."
I'm mostly gonna base this on the "more detailed" explainer but I do have to address this nonsense claim in the initial press release:
CLAIM:
“Your prescription drugs will come way, way down and, under this policy, the prices of many drugs will be slashed by 300, 400 even 500% starting this month at the Trumprx.gov.”
This is very helpful for data hounds like myself, and I'll be consulting it regularly in the future.
In addition to displaying the latest enrollment data by various criteria, the MA dashboard also provides data from prior weeks, which means I can look for trend lines:
Total QHPs (ConnectorCare + Std. QHPs combined):
12/14/25: 361,541
12/21/25: 361,192
12/28/25: 371,453
01/04/26: 368,436
01/11/26: 372,971
What's noteworthy about this is that yesterday's CMS report had Massachusetts down as having 382,580 QHP selections total as of 12/27/25...which is over 11,000 higher than what the MA Connector had it at as of a day later.
Back in September I ran an analysis of the ~24 million Americans enrolled in ACA exchange healthcare coverage to try and get a better idea of the partisan impact of the expiration of the enhanced tax credits.
While it was already common knowledge that red states have significantly more ACA enrollees than blue ones (mainly because 9 of the 10 states still refusing to expand Medicaid under the ACA are red ones), I wanted to take a more granular look, so I broke enrollment out at the Congressional District level instead, and determined that while there are definitely more people in red districts who were about to be hit with massive net premium hikes, it wasn't a massive gap...it was around 20% higher in districts won by Republicans than by Democrats, which is significant but not jaw-dropping.
[GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio] said his goal is to get roughly 35 of the Senate’s 53 GOP senators to support an eventual deal — not just a handful joining Democrats on a “defection vote” — and that he’s keeping the White House and Senate leaders closely apprised of the discussions.
...His involvement is also a sign that a new generation of bipartisan dealmakers might be starting to emerge after some of the Senate’s old hands headed for the exits in recent cycles. Moreno is now in close touch with not only Collins and Shaheen but other Senate pragmatists such as Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Angus King (I-Maine).
...The Senate group’s proposed extension would include new restrictions including a $5 a month minimum premium payment and an income cap set at 700 percent of the federal poverty level. In the second year, the proposal would also give enrollees to take their subsidy as cash in pre-funded health savings accounts — an arrangement favored by Trump.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reports that 22.8 million consumers have signed up for 2026 individual market health insurance coverage through the Marketplaces since the start of the 2026 Marketplace Open Enrollment Period (OEP) on November 1, 2025. This includes 15.6 million Marketplace plan selections in the 30 states using the HealthCare.gov platform for the 2026 plan year and 7.2 million plan selections in the 20 states and the District of Columbia with state-based Exchanges (SBEs) that are using their own eligibility and enrollment platforms.
Total nationwide plan selections include 2.8 million consumers who are new to the Marketplaces for 2026, and 20.0 million consumers who had active 2025 coverage and selected a plan for 2026 coverage or were automatically re-enrolled.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesotans have four days left to sign up for health insurance through MNsure for the rest of the calendar year. The final deadline to enroll is 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, January 15, for coverage that starts February 1, 2026. After January 15, most Minnesotans will need a major life change, such as moving, getting married, or having a baby, to enroll in health insurance through MNsure—which makes this deadline especially critical.
“Enrollment advice and financial help for Minnesota health care plans are available through the MNsure website,” said MNsure CEO Libby Caulum. “Minnesotans have a variety of plan options to choose from and can shop with confidence on the state’s official health insurance marketplace.”
