A 40-year-old shopping for a middle-of-the-road health plan paid around $497 a month in 2025. This year the same benchmark plan cost $624. For 2027 it's about $704. That's a jump of about 42% in two years, computed from the figures KFF pulled from federal data released Friday, Oct. 30. The Journal's Anna Wilde Mathews has the story. The shopping window opens Sunday, Nov. 1.
The headline number is 13%. That's the average premium increase for Affordable Care Act plans in 2027, the second year in a row with a double-digit rise. It follows a 26% surge this year, and KFF calls it the second-biggest increase since 2018. A benchmark plan is the middle-priced plan in your area. The government uses it to set subsidy amounts. Most people on ACA coverage get a subsidy. So the full 13% lands on the smaller group who pay the whole premium themselves.
Two things are pushing premiums up at once. The first is ordinary. Hospitals and drugs cost more every year, and that shows up in every kind of insurance, says Cynthia Cox, a senior vice president at KFF. Workers with a plan through their job feel it too. Their 2027 bills are rising, and bosses are shifting more of the cost into paychecks and deductibles. Seniors picking a Medicare plan this fall are finding leaner benefits and bigger drug deductibles.
A smaller, sicker pool
The second push is unique to the ACA. Federal subsidies were cut sharply at the start of this year, and the plans got far more expensive for millions of people. The healthy ones were the most likely to drop out. That leaves a smaller and sicker pool, which means higher premiums for everyone who stays. Enrollment fell to about 19.2 million as of February, down 12% from a year earlier, and insurers say more have left since. KFF counted 31 state-level insurer departures and eight additions as of late October. Cigna (CI) is pulling out of the ACA entirely next year. "The market is deteriorating," Cox said. She and other analysts don't see a collapse coming. They do expect it to stay smaller than its 2024 and 2025 peak.
Our read
Health Costs, with Cash Flow, M5, close behind. The ACA market is where early retirees and the self-employed buy their bridge to Medicare at 65. A $704 benchmark plan for one 40-year-old runs well past $8,000 a year, computed, and older buyers pay more. The subsidy formula still keys off your income, so the same plan can cost two neighbors very different amounts. A smaller pool with fewer insurers also means the plan you had may not be offered where you live next year. These are general planning principles, not advice for anyone in particular.
Here's where it touches your plan. If you're on an ACA plan, the window opens Sunday, Nov. 1. Before you let it auto-renew, check whether your insurer is one of the 31 leaving a state, and run your projected 2027 income through the subsidy estimator. If you're retiring early, add the real premium to your budget for every year until Medicare. If you're already on Medicare, read the drug deductible on your plan's notice this week, since those went up too. You check the roof before the rain, not after. Bring the plan notice to your next review and we'll fit the number into the rest of the plan.