More than a million people have dropped health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, according to federal data released this week.
The drop comes as enhanced tax credits that helped reduce the cost of getting health insurance expired on Dec. 31.
When the credits expired, the Congressional Budget Office projected that over 2 million would drop their Obamacare coverage this year, largely because of higher costs.
In 2025, 24.1 million Americans had coverage on the Obamacare marketplace – this year that number is 22.9 million Americans, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That’s a decline of about 1.2 million people, and more consumers could drop coverage in the coming months as the data is only preliminary.
“Open enrollment data released to date are of people who have selected a plan, but enrollment is not complete and coverage does not actually take effect until they pay their first month’s premium,” a report from the faculty of the Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms said.
“Information on paid enrollment will not be available for several months, and is expected to show a decline, possibly meaningfully, from the number of plan selections.”
The expired subsidies were first given to Affordable Care Act enrollees in 2021 as a temporary measure to help Americans get through the COVID-19 pandemic. Democrats in power at the time extended them, moving the expiration date to the start of 2026.
With the expanded subsidies, people with higher incomes became eligible for the marketplace and the credits were expanded to cover more costs for those who were previously eligible.
Of the 22.9 million Americans enrolled currently in the marketplace, about 19.6 million are returning customers and about 3.4 million are new customers.
Enrollment didn’t decline across the board. New Mexico saw enrollment go up by 19.5% compared to last year, the highest of any state, followed by Washington, DC, Texas and Maryland.
But other states saw sharp declines, according to an analysis by Becker’s. North Carolina saw the biggest drop of 21.1% of enrollments, followed by Ohio and West Virginia.
Alabama saw about 22,000 fewer enrollments this year compared to last. 455,776 people in the state get their health coverage through the marketplace.
Some states, like California, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania, are still in their open enrollment period, while enrollment on the federal platform, HealthCare.gov, closed on January 15, 2026.