The cost for health care coverage purchased on HealthCare.gov in Wisconsin will rise for some insurance policies by anywhere from 45% to 800% for 2026, depending on where a person lives, Gov. Tony Evers announced.
The increased rates will be made worse with the end of enhanced federal subsidies, provided in the form of tax credits, that have lowered insurance costs through the marketplace since 2021, Evers and Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin said during a virtual press conference.
“In 2025, 88% of Wisconsinites [who] enrolled in coverage on HealthCare.gov qualify for tax credits, saving an average of $664 a month,” Evers said. “And without these enhanced tax credits, health care premiums for Wisconsinites are going to skyrocket, period. Many Wisconsinites will see their premiums double, and some of them will see staggering increases.”
HealthCare.gov is the federal insurance marketplace, created under the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) to improve health insurance access for people without health coverage from an employer or from government programs.
More than 310,000 Wisconsinites purchased health insurance through the marketplace for 2025, according to the Wisconsin Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OCI). HealthCare.gov open enrollment for 2026 starts Nov. 1.
OCI released a list with examples of rate increases for patients of various ages and under selected scenarios based on age, family size and incomes. The examples compared rate increases across eight counties.
Evers said a statewide average increase wasn’t available “because it’s going to impact lots of people in a lot of different ways.”
In a few scenarios and locations, rate increases will be lower than 10%. Those are exceptions, however. Most scenarios and locations showed premium increases ranging from more than 30% on up. Some increases were well over 100%, and one example showed an increase of more than 800% in one Wisconsin county.
Nationwide, some 22 million Americans will see their premiums double on average, Baldwin said. She cited projections that 4 million Americans “will look at that price tag and decide to drop their insurance altogether because it’s simply too expensive. It’s more than they can afford.”
KFF, a nonpartisan, nonprofit health policy news and analysis organization, reported Oct. 3 that seven out of 10 people nationally who buy health coverage through the federal marketplace said they would not be able to afford insurance without the enhanced subsidies.
Democrats in Congress have named extending the subsidies as one of their conditions for Democratic support of the Republican majority’s legislation to end the current federal shutdown.
In response, GOP leaders in Congress have called on Democratic lawmakers to sign on to their spending bill to restart the government and then negotiate to extend the subsidies.
Baldwin said Democrats won’t accept “a wink and a nod” that the tax credit talks should come after the government reopens. She said she’s heard privately from Republicans in the Senate who agree that Congress should extend the subsidies.
With 78% of Americans, according to one poll, “who believe we need to address this, and many of my Republican colleagues want to do so, then we need to have an agreement to extend the tax credits as we reopen the government,” Baldwin said.
Restaurant owner Dan Jacobs speaks at a round table with Gov. Tony Evers in Milwaukee Monday about increased health insurance premiums at HealthCare.gov. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
Later in Milwaukee, Evers held a round table with business owners, advocates and lawmakers to discuss the HealthCare.gov rate increases.
“If you’re seeing these jumps in 26-year-olds, across the board, I don’t know how we afford this,” said Dan Jacobs, owner of the Milwaukee restaurant DanDan. Jacobs said about two-thirds of his employees have health insurance, most of them probably purchasing it through the marketplace.
His business subsidized the insurance premiums that full-time employees and managers bought through HealthCare.gov for 2025, he said, but with the premium increases“we’re not going to be able to afford to do that,” Jacobs told Evers.
Kara Pitt-D’Andrea, who operates a nonprofit child care facility in Milwaukee with about 25 employees, told Evers, “100% of us are on the ACA or Medicaid.”
She called health coverage a moral imperative rather than an act of charity.
“To say to people, ‘We refuse to come to the table to create a sustainable option for you’ is the equivalent of saying, ‘You are unimportant in the game of business that we are playing,’” Pitt-D’Andrea said.
