Health insurance rates will increase sharply for the 4 million-plus Floridians who rely on so-called Obamacare plans or small employer health insurance coverage in the coming weeks, according to data released by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.
The OIR reported late last month that, beginning Jan. 1, 2026, Florida health plans had been approved for double-digit increases in monthly premiums people pay for the individual policies sold on the federal health insurance exchange (healthcare.gov). Florida leads the nation in the number of people enrolled in the exchange.
This year, a 28-year-old single individual living in Flagler County, making $34,000 a year, and enrolled through an average silver plan in the Affordable Care Act marketplace, is paying $181 and receiving a federal subsidy of $369. In 2026, the same individual will be paying a $368 premium, a 103 percent increase, according to OIR.
For a family of four with a household income of $85,000 in Flagler County, the monthly premium for an average silver plan will rise to 1,192, from $680, a 75 percent increase. The federal subsidy this year was $1,390. It’s increasing only to $1,554, while the monthly average total premium cost is rising from $2,070 to $2,747, or 33 percent.
Insurance companies offering ACA coverage in Flagler County are also fewer in 2026 than in 2025. This year, providers included Aetna, Amerihealth Caritas Florida, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Florida Health Care, Health First Commercial Plans, Health Options Inc., Oscar Insurance, and United Healthcare.
Aetna and Amerihealth Caritas Florida are no longer providing ACA coverage in Flagler this year.
Similarly, a 28-year old adult living in Duval County earning $35,000 annually and enrolled in a silver-level individual health insurance plan may pay $281 a month starting Jan. 1, up from $149 now. In Flagler County, the individual would pay
Premiums for a family of four earning $85,000 in Duval County will increase to $864 a month after tax credits in 2026, up from $558.
A 28-year-old- living in Miami-Dade County could pay a $322 monthly premium; premiums for such a person in Hillsborough County could total $298 a month. Family premiums in those counties will be $1,019 a month and $932 a month, respectively.
Rates in rural counties will be even higher. Okeechobee County has the dubious distinction of facing the highest premiums in the state: A family of four could pay $1,630 a month and an individual $484 a month.
The OIR posted the information “for illustrative purposes only” on Aug. 25 but did not otherwise publicly announce that it was available online for people to review in advance of open enrollment for 2026 coverage, which starts Nov. 1.
“Posting them on our website is making them public,” OIR spokesperson Kylie Mason told the Florida Phoenix in an email.
The increases in the costs of coverage — coupled with reductions to Medicaid in the 2025 Budget Reconciliation Act (also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill) and programmatic changes to the ACA — could increase the number of uninsured residents in the state by as many as 730,000 in the next 10 years, a KFF analysis shows.
Most of those people, 500,000, could become uninsured because of changes to Obamacare — formally the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — and the elimination of enhanced advanced premiums tax credits first made available in 2021 to further lower out-of-pocket costs for people in “silver” level plans.
If the enhanced advance premium tax credits expire, the number of uninsured residents in Florida could increase by another 1.2 million people, the same KFF analysis indicates. Those additional tax payments for co-payments and deductibles are set to expire at the end of the year. The Florida Hospital Association and other organizations want Congress to extend them.
“We’re approaching a healthcare cliff right now,” Florida Decides Healthcare spokesperson Karol Molinares told the Florida Phoenix. The organization is pushing a ballot initiative to place Medicaid expansion before the voters.
“That means ERs being clogged up, people not being able to see their primary-care doctors, uncompensated care. Costs for hospitals are going to skyrocket, which the state is going to be on the hook for. You’re also going to have 50,000 medical jobs that are going to be lost. It’s a whole chain reaction.”
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The rate increases affect small-employer coverage, too, because the ACA requires certain benefits and coverage to be included in the health plans small employers offer their staffs.
The rate increases for small businesses aren’t as great as those for individuals and therefore the premium increases aren’t as severe, but remain substantive. The OIR data show costs rising from an average $728 per individual in 2025 to $821 in 2026.
Although Republicans in Florida have not expanded Medicaid to lower-income childless adults, as the ACA allows, the federal health law is popular with residents who annually have flocked to the marketplace for health coverage.
The health exchanges represent a key component of the law, which changed how health insurance can be priced. The law bans insurance companies from medically underwriting the policies and allows rates to be based on four factors only: age, tobacco use, geographic location, and family size.
Eighteen companies write in the state’s individual health insurance market, including the Community Care Network, a Department of Veterans Affairs health plan providing care outside of VA facilities that operates in Broward County only.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, operating under the Florida Blue moniker, offer policies across Florida’s 67 counties. Its affiliate, Health Options, provides HMO coverage in 64 counties. Centene Venture Co. Florida, meanwhile, is offered in 63 counties.
The OIR released 2026 county breakdowns of potential premiums for a 28-year-old individual earning $35,000 annually and potential premiums for a family of four earning $85,000. (Note: The 2025 county breakdowns showed premiums for individuals earning $34,000 and families of four earning $84,000.)
The OIR examples illustrate the costs of plans as well as costs after the advanced premium tax credits that reduce premiums. The numbers are based on the silver-level health insurance policy, the only plan that qualifies enrollees for additional credits to lower out-of-pocket costs.
Florida is not alone in these rate hikes — insurers nationwide are filing double-digit increases. A KFF review of marketplace plans submitted by 312 insurers in 50 states and the District of Columbia shows that the median proposed increase for 2026 is 18%, more than double last year’s 7% median proposed increase.
Insurers cited rising costs, utilization of services, and the loss of enhanced advanced premium tax benefits as reasons behind the rate increases, according to KFF.
Medicaid expansion needed
According to the most recent OIR data, most people in Florida who purchased health insurance policies in 2023 bought individual coverage on the federal health insurance exchange.The 2023 data show that more than 5.8 million people maintained commercial health insurance policies, and most of those people, 3.6 million-plus, had individual health insurance.
Nearly 1.8 million people had large-group plans — those sold to businesses with more than 51 employees. Small group policies insured another 400,164 lives in 2023.
The soaring rates, Molinares said, underscore the need for Florida to expand Medicaid to low-income, childless adults, Molinares said.
“I think Medicaid expansion is the last tool in the tool box to avoid a healthcare cliff that we are barrelling toward if the ACA tax credits don’t get renewed,” she said.
–Christine Sexton, Florida Phoenix, and FlaglerLive
R.S. says
Like all developed countries, this nation should have a single-payer system as an alternative to the for-profit healthcare systems. Medical care would become far less expensive for individuals and governmental agencies could negotiate lower prices with the pharmacological corporations. Just one example: Jardiance, a newly developed medication for some cases of chronic kidney disease, is developed by Boehringer/Ingelheim and is still under patent protection: it costs for a monthly supply in Europe €200, in the US $700, and in Canada $120. Europe has generally a nationally administered insurance alternative; Canada has a single-payer system; however, our dealmaker in command hasn’t managed to bring medical prices down; instead he’s made them more expensive by adding the tariffs.
Shark says
There is nothing to worry about. Soon we will have that beautiful trump care that he promised in the first few days of his first term!!
What else can ya do in a world leading first world economy says
Healthcare in this country is the pits at best. I am currently uninsured, have been for the past few years now. Honestly, I just hope for no emergency needs, and I figure medical tourism – maybe – for larger planned procedures. But I duno, I try not to think about it. I just eat right, exercise, go to work, and wake up each day hoping for the best.