Georgia’s health insurance market is open for re-enrollment for the more than 1.5 million small business owners, gig workers and families that relied on what’s commonly known as Obamacare plans for health coverage.
Yet many of those Georgians don’t yet know how much they will have to pay for Affordable Care Act insurance next year, as federal lawmakers argue about whether to extend the federal subsidies expiring at the end of the year that approximately 450,000 state residents rely on. The future of those subsidies is the issue that has shut down the federal government.
John King, who oversees Georgia’s health insurance marketplace as the state’s insurance and safety fire commissioner, conceded that health insurance premiums will go up in 2026. But he encouraged Savannah businesses and individual consumers on Monday to secure their coverage options despite the uncertainty of costs, as the federal government continues to debate whether to extend federal subsidies.
“Rates will probably go up this coming year. But the only way to find out is by going and looking at what’s available. The earlier, the sooner you can do that, then you’ll know what you can expect, what coverage options you have,” King told members of the Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce at its headquarters.
Premiums for Obamacare insurance plans are set to rise between 6% and 40% in Georgia if the enhanced subsidies expire, according to filings from health insurance companies who offer coverage on the ACA marketplace in the state, which is known as Georgia Access.
In response to a question by The Current GA, King declined to say what percentage of Georgians might be in danger of losing health insurance if the enhanced federal subsidies for marketplace plans are not extended.
Regardless of Washington’s decision about funding, he said, the Georgia health insurance landscape would remain strong. “We have a viable, competitive market, and companies will stay,” King said. “I’ve talked to all the leaders of these companies. They have more confidence in Georgia solving this than they do in Washington.”
Federal funding cuts for social safety net programs like Medicaid and ACA health insurance subsidies has many of the state’s small businesses and the state’s rural hospitals worried. The jump in premiums for low-income Georgians could mean a spike in the state’s already high uninsured rate, as well as pressures on hospitals’ bottom lines.
Ending the subsidies will mean $1.6 billion in lost revenue for hospitals in Georgia next year — and lead to $2 billion in higher costs for Georgians who rely on these plans for health insurance, according to a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute, which study health care policy and the consequences of federal social safety net programs.
Last week in Glynn County, more than 30 residents gathered to hear local healthcare leaders discuss how their services and how the changing health care landscape could threaten the services they can provide Coastal Georgians.
Georgia has one of the highest rates of uninsured people in the nation, on a percentage basis. Economic pressures on hospitals will rise if the uninsured rate in the state rises, too, said Kavanaugh Chandler, CEO of Coastal Community Health.
Christy Jordan, president and chief executive of Southeast Georgia Health Systems, said that the hospital provided $108 million worth of uncompensated care in Glynn, Camden, McIntosh, and Brantley counties in the past fiscal year. “If we weren’t here doing that, that would be a huge hole in care for our community,” she said.