Open enrollment for Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace coverage for 2025 began November 1 and runs through January 15, 2025 in every state except Idaho (where the deadline is December 16), Kentucky (January 16), Massachusetts (January 23), and California, the District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island (January 31). This is the annual opportunity for people who have marketplace coverage to change plans if they want to, and for people who need coverage but aren’t currently enrolled to sign up and utilize the enhanced tax credits to expand access to affordable care.

The ACA marketplaces are a critical source of health coverage for people who don’t qualify for Medicaid or Medicare and don’t have an affordable offer of coverage from an employer. Thanks to enhanced tax credits made by the 2021 American Rescue Plan and sustained by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, premium tax credits (PTCs) cover a larger share of enrollees’ premiums than they did in prior years. In fact, PTCs cover the full cost of a silver “benchmark” plan for people with income at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level ($22,590 for an individual in 2025).

Those enhanced tax credits also made PTCs available to people with income greater than four times the federal poverty level (about $60,000 for an individual in 2025) if their premium would otherwise cost more than 8.5 percent of their income. This provides important relief to people who previously faced an eligibility “cliff” if their household income tipped over that limit.

The PTC changes have made premiums much more affordable for all enrollees while targeting the most relief to people with the lowest incomes, who need it most. More than 20 million people had active ACA marketplace coverage as of February 2024. Nearly all enrollees (93 percent) receive PTCs, which lower an enrollee’s premiums by $536 per month, on average. Nearly two-thirds of enrollees (63 percent) have household income at or below two times the poverty level.

The enhanced PTCs remain available through the 2025 coverage year, but the enhancements will expire at the end of December 2025 unless Congress acts. If Congress fails to act, people in every state will face sharp premium increases for 2026 coverage, and millions of people (3.8 million, the Congressional Budget Office estimates) will lose coverage because they will no longer be able to afford it. During this year’s open enrollment, though, it’s important to understand that the enhanced PTCs will continue through 2025.

Read the full article about ACA marketplace coverage by Jennifer Sullivan at Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.