📣 CONNECTICUT is a bit of a shocker: Thanks to (relatively) low premium hikes, an unexpected *upgrade* in average plan comprehensiveness *and* generous, last-minute state subsidies being passed, avg. net enrollee costs only went up...~7% or so this year! acasignups.net/26/05/27/how...

How much more are CONNECTICUT ...
How much more are CONNECTICUT ACA enrollees *really* paying this year due to Trump/GOP policies?

IMPORTANT: See the original post in this series for an explanation of the methodology. Regular readers know that I've been obsessing over the massive increases in both gross as well as net premiums for ACA health insurance policy enrollees being caused by the combination of Congressional Republicans allowing the enhanced federal tax credits to expire as well as other Trump Regime policy changes for well over a year and a half now. I've written countless analyses of how much both gross and net premiums skyrocketed from 2025 to 2026 across different states, different income levels and various other demographics...and last week it was revealed that over 3 million ACA exchange enrollees had already been priced out of the market as of April, with the number almost certain to climb further throughout the rest of 2026. As I've repeatedly warned, however, the increases in premium costs (whether gross or net) are only half the story. The other big shoe which is dropping this year is increased out of pocket costs as millions of the ~19.2 million or so remaining enrollees as of April have been forced to downgrade their coverage to avoid (or at least minimize) those massive premium spikes.

ACA Signups
On the one hand, avg. full-price #ACA premiums were already over $900/month on average last eyar, so the fact that they "only" increased by 12% (to $1,030/mo) isn't that impressive. On the other hand, thanks to the state subsidies, *net* avg. premiums are only going up about 7.6%...
The more surprising thing is that while ACA enrollees in most states were forced to "buy down" to worse plans, in CT (as well as New Mexico, I'm sure) they actually *upgraded* their plans on average, with ~6.3K fewer selecting Silver/Gold but ~10.4K *more* selecting "secret Platinum" CSR plans.
As a result, AFAICT, Connecticut enrollees are "only" paying about $387 more apiece in net premiums + OOP costs on average, although obviously some folks are paying a LOT more than that.
The overall "upgrading" is even more surprising considering that the state subsidy program wasn't even announced until well AFTER the Open Enrollment Period had started and I don't think the subsidies started being implemented until after OEP ended. Huh.