Amidst all the headlines, a reminder that 2026 ACA Window Shopping is now live in GA, ID, MD, NV, NY & VA

I already mentioned this in my post from a few days ago, but I suspect it was lost in the larger scope of the entry, so I'm calling attention it more explicitly here:

With the 2026 ACA Open Enrollment Period officially starting on November 1st, and with millions of ACA enrollees being bombarded with scary letters from their insurance carriers and headlines warning of massive premium hikes, residents of six states* (as of this writing) can already enter their own household information to find out how much their net health insurance premiums are going to increase starting January 1st, 2026:

*It was five states on Sunday; since then Maryland has also gone live, and other states may have joined them by the time you read this. See here for important info about MD's new state-based financial subsidy program.

• Georgia (Georgia Access)

• Idaho (Your Health Idaho)

• Maryland (Maryland Health Connection)

• Nevada (Nevada Health Link)

• New York (NY State of Health)

• Virginia (VA Insurance Marketplace)

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:

• October 15th: California, Kentucky Maine, New Mexico, Oregon & Vermont
• "Mid October:" Massachusetts, Minnesota, District of Columbia
• 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 Maryland) which are backfilling some or all lost federal tax credits for many/most enrollees; others, like 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).

Obvoiusly I'll have a lot more to say about this over the coming weeks.