The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid show Ohio has the highest percentage of residents who dropped their healthcare coverage purchased through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace. ACA enrollment fell more than 32% between February 2025 and February 2026.
“Ohio leads the nation in ACA enrollment decline," said Joanne Pickrell with Protect Our Care Ohio, a health care advocacy group. "The latest data that came out this week provided information that 160,000 Ohioans have lost their coverage through the ACA."
The executive director of the Universal Health Care Action Network, which helps Ohioans enroll in healthcare plans, said she's seen that drop first hand. Charlotte Rudolph of UHCAN Ohio said 60% of her clients enrolled in the program. But this year, she said only one in ten did because of increased premiums due to the loss of the ACA subsidies.
“It was sticker shock for our clients. They absolutely could not afford a plan. And the ones who did, they were basically desperate for the coverage, not even knowing if they would be able to continue to make those monthly premium payments," Rudolph said.
Plan costs went up dramatically—some more than double—due to the loss of the advanced premium tax credits from the ACA. Those temporary enhanced subsidies put in place to help with health care costs during the pandemic were not continued in the One Big Beautiful Bill. That Republican-backed sweeping tax cut and spending bill passed with four votes in the U.S. House and Vice President JD Vance breaking a tie in the Senate. No Democrats voted for it and two Republicans joined them in voting against it.
Politicians are talking about this
A group opposing Republican healthcare policies has kicked off a campaign that will extend through the November elections. "Sick of It" is the slogan for the campaign by the advocacy group Protect Our Care. The group launched its campaign Wednesday, joined by U.S. Rep. Shontell Brown (D-OH).
"This is the biggest challenge that Ohio has faced since the Great Recession," Brown said.
In a written statement, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown blamed his opponent U.S. Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) for voting for the One Big Beautiful Bill.
“Jon Husted could’ve protected 160,000 Ohioans’ health care months ago. Instead, he voted nine times to increase healthcare premiums on Ohio families," Brown said. "While Husted is busy lining his campaign coffers with hundreds of thousands of dollars from insurance companies, Ohioans are paying the ultimate price. Working families are losing their health insurance while Jon Husted continues to make things worse.”
Husted's office said in a statement that compared with pre-pandemic enrollment, Ohio still has nearly 135,000 more people enrolled in ACA plans than before the temporary subsidies. And Husted's office said other factors caused health care premiums to spike, noting the Kaiser Family Foundation estimated the subsidy expiration accounted for only 3.3% of premium increases, indicating other factors played a much larger role.
"Senator Husted introduced a bill—the Accountability for Better Care Act—to extend the ACA subsidies for two years while addressing the cost of care long-term, and Senate Democrats blocked it," Husted's office wrote in the statement. "He continues to fight for ways to make health care more accessible and affordable for working people.”
Senate Democrats said they opposed Husted's plan because it would have extended the credits for two years and they wanted more time, and that changes he proposed would still mean thousands of people would see higher costs or lose coverage.
Protect Our Care Ohio plans to do a bus tour throughout the state, also talking about potential future losses of Medicaid funding under Republican leadership in Washington D.C. and Ohio.
