Thomas Massie’s latest remark about Obamacare lands as ACA Marketplace insurers propose a 14% median premium increase for 2027. The filings publicly available from 77 insurers in 16 states and the District of Columbia point to another year of higher costs for people buying individual coverage.
The KFF analysis by Cynthia Cox and other researchers puts the 2027 median requested increase below last year’s 18% nationwide proposal and 20% finalized change, but still at the second-highest requested rate change since 2018. If those early indications hold, typical premiums for insurers participating in the ACA Marketplaces would be more than one-third higher over two years.
Cynthia Cox and KFF filings
The analysis focuses on individual market filings for plans selling Affordable Care Act Marketplace coverage. Insurers submit those rate filings every spring and summer to state regulators for the coming year, and the public filings now available cover Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont and Washington.
Hawaii, Illinois and Texas had publicly available filings for only part of their participating insurers. That means the 14% median reflects the filings that were available at the time of the analysis, not a final approved rate for the full market.
Costs, credits, and enrollment
Insurers said underlying healthcare prices are a key driver of the 2027 requests, alongside the rising cost of health services, general economic inflation and labor shortages. They also pointed to the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits at the end of 2025, a factor that already helped drive a drop in enrollment in 2026 as healthier enrollees were more likely to leave coverage.
The same filings describe a risk pool with higher morbidity as another source of pressure on rates. In practical terms, that leaves shoppers facing a market where the next posted premium can still change before final approval, but the direction of travel in the filings is already clear: insurers expect continued deterioration in 2027 unless the forces behind the increases change.
For people comparing ACA Marketplace plans now, the useful number is the median, not a guarantee for any single policy. A shopper in any of the 16 states and the District of Columbia can see a request that is above or below 14%, but the filings show the same pattern across a broad set of insurers — another double-digit year layered on top of last year’s jump.
