{"id":109073,"date":"2026-02-09T13:31:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T13:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/109073\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T13:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T13:31:11","slug":"older-philly-area-residents-face-steep-aca-premiums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/109073\/","title":{"rendered":"Older Philly-area residents face steep ACA premiums"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Something\u2019s wrong\u2019: Older residents face premium spikes<\/p>\n

Buchovecky grew up in Chester County, Pennsylvania, which is where she and her husband also raised their four children.\n<\/p>\n

After more than two decades teaching high school English while her husband worked at a local company as a systems analyst, the couple determined they had saved enough to retire just before 60.\n<\/p>\n

A big factor in that decision was knowing they could get health insurance through Pennie, Pennsylvania\u2019s ACA marketplace. A silver plan cost about $150 a month in premiums in early 2023, Buchovecky said.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we thought, well, where do we want to retire to? OK, Delaware,\u201d she said. \u201cNever gave insurance a second thought.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

But moving to a new state in the fall of 2023 came with growing pains, she said, especially when it came to health insurance.\n<\/p>\n

Buchovecky and her husband found that the plan options in Delaware were pricier and had smaller networks of health providers in general compared to the coverage they had in Chester County.\n<\/p>\n

They ended up dropping down to a less comprehensive plan that cost them about $350 a month \u2014 \u201cstill totally doable,\u201d Buchovecky said.\n<\/p>\n

Their monthly premium remained affordable even on a limited income, she said, because they qualified for some enhanced premium tax credits<\/a>, which Congress passed in 2021 during the pandemic.\n<\/p>\n

However, that changed this past fall when the couple had to shop for 2026 coverage without the federal tax credits, which had an expiration date of Dec. 31. To keep their current plan, Buchovecky told her husband it would cost them nearly $3,000 a month.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he kept saying, \u2018You\u2019re doing something wrong.\u2019 I\u2019m like, believe me, I wish I was doing something wrong,\u201d she said laughing. \u201cHe\u2019s like, \u2018You\u2019re gonna have to show me.\u2019 So, I showed him and he\u2019s like, \u2018Something\u2019s wrong with the system, this can\u2019t be right.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n

They eventually found a different plan \u201cfor the low, low price\u201d of $2,500 a month, Buchovecky said sarcastically.\n<\/p>\n

There was no question her husband needed health insurance, as he had suffered a stroke several years ago and has ongoing medical needs. But Buchovecky told him she was seriously considering going uninsured to save money.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went back and forth and back and forth and I just didn\u2019t want to do it. I\u2019m like, screw it,\u201d she said. \u201cBut he was getting so worked up about, \u2018If something happens to you, like, what am I supposed to do?\u2019 I think I signed up at 11:58 p.m. the last day, because I was just so angry.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Something\u2019s wrong\u2019: Older residents face premium spikes Buchovecky grew up in Chester County, Pennsylvania, which is where she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5892,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-109073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-affordable-care-act","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}