Open Enrollment Opens in Florida With Exchange Premiums Up 10.4 Percent on Average
Floridians shopping the Affordable Care Act exchange as open enrollment begins this weekend are finding premiums up an average of 10.4 percent, according to the state Office of Insurance Regulation — days before an election in which healthcare has become a central issue in Southwest Florida's swing congressional district.
Open enrollment on the Affordable Care Act exchange begins this weekend in Florida, and shoppers are learning what their new premiums are: up an average of 10.4 percent, according to the state's Office of Insurance Regulation, NPR reported Saturday. Florida was hit especially hard when the COVID-era federal subsidies expired last year, NPR reported.
The reporting came from Florida's newly redrawn 22nd Congressional District, which sprawls from the Gulf Coast to the suburbs of Palm Beach and includes Collier County. In Naples, NPR spoke with a 23-year-old registered nurse who works as a contractor and has no health insurance; northeast of Naples, a Collier County couple told NPR they have been without insurance since January, after their agent told them their premium would double or triple without the subsidy, and have since paid out of pocket for an emergency hospital visit and pneumonia treatment.
The district's candidates split on the issue, NPR reported. Democrat Pia Dandiya says she would work to restore the ACA subsidies, expand Medicaid funding and lower drug prices. Her Republican opponent, Casey Askar, wants to eliminate the ACA altogether and crack down on fraud to preserve Medicare and Medicaid; his campaign did not reply to NPR's interview requests.
For Southwest Florida voters, the enrollment window and the election now run on top of each other: Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, and the premiums voters are seeing as they shop for 2027 coverage are, in NPR's account, moving votes in one of the state's most competitive districts.
