Georgia Recorder: “Next year’s inflation is on top of massive price increases that already occurred for 2026 coverage after Congress and President Donald Trump allowed pandemic-era extra ACA subsidies to expire.”

Georgia Recorder: “Georgia saw about 350,000 people drop their ACA insurance from spring of 2025 to spring of 2026, one of the largest drops in the nation.”

Atlanta, Ga. — According to a new report by the Georgia Recorder, health insurance premiums are set to increase again in 2027, coming after Mike Collins voted to double health insurance premiums for more than a million Georgians.

The report cites that 900,000 Georgians can expect their Affordable Care Act health care premiums to skyrocket for 2027 coverage, which comes after GOP U.S. Senate candidate Mike Collins voted to double ACA tax credits for more than 1 million Georgians and later caused about 350,000 Georgians to lose their coverage altogether after the tax credits expired.

Sen. Ossoff has repeatedly called on Republicans to protect Georgians’ health care and fought last year to extend the ACA tax credits.

Georgia Recorder: ACA premium prices insuring 900K Georgians to shoot up — again
By Ariel Hart | August 31, 2026

KEY EXCERPTS:

• The Affordable Care Act health insurance program that covers 900,000 Georgians is on track to see price hikes of as much as 20% or more when open enrollment begins this fall for 2027 coverage. That’s according to state data obtained by the Georgia Recorder for the ACA exchange run by the state and called Georgia Access.

• Next year’s inflation is on top of massive price increases that already occurred for 2026 coverage after Congress and President Donald Trump allowed pandemic-era extra ACA subsidies to expire. […]

• In addition, the premium price changes that consumers see when they go to sign up at open enrollment will also be affected by how federal and state subsidies are calculated.

• But the news is a signal and a blow to customers, as well as to the hospitals who wonder if this means more are going to walk in uninsured next year in need of free care. […]

• […] A lobbyist for hospitals in Georgia, Monty Veazey, said that the massive price increase that already took effect this year threw so many people off the ACA exchange that Georgia hospitals lost $441 million, based on his calculations of the average value per insured person. 

• Carry Smith, an ACA customer in coastal Georgia, was terse when told about the coming price increases. Smith juggles multiple part-time jobs and has depended on her ACA plan to keep a life-threatening infection at bay. 

• Smith’s premium insurance skyrocketed seven-fold earlier this year, and she managed because she had just paid off her car. She couldn’t say exactly how she plans to pay her premium if it increases yet again. Hearing the possible numbers, Smith said, simply, “Wow.”

• Nora Pullen, a self-employed life and wellness coach and math and testing tutor in Fayette County, already dropped her ACA coverage this year after prices skyrocketed. She had little hope that prices would come back within reach this year but this seals it.

• “I honestly don’t think this is sustainable for people,” Pullen said, when told about the planned increases. […]

• However, the decisions to drop coverage are weighted in one camp: those who are healthy, like Pullen. Those who are in immediate need of care, like Smith, are more likely to stay. And that becomes a corporate Catch-22 where it’s even more expensive for insurance companies to keep providing coverage, causing them to raise prices yet again.

• “It is not a good indication of where the market’s going, to see two years of extremely steep increases like this,” said Cynthia Cox, senior vice president and director of the Program on the ACA at the health research nonprofit KFF. “What we’re seeing is that insurers are saying that they’re kind of expecting the market to continue shrinking. In other words, more people becoming uninsured, likely because it would be the healthier people who leave the market, and that’s what’s making premiums go up.”

• After the last round of price increases, Georgia saw about 350,000 people drop their ACA insurance from spring of 2025 to spring of 2026, one of the largest drops in the nation. That’s partly because Georgia didn’t expand Medicaid to all its poor, so huge numbers of Georgians just above the poverty level are instead insured through Georgia Access. […]

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