Americans awake this fall to a brutal truth: health-care bills are about to spike in ways that will crush family budgets and small businesses alike. Insurers across many states have already filed eye-popping proposed rate hikes for 2026, with statewide averages climbing into the double digits and some carriers requesting truly staggering increases. The early rate filings make clear this is not a localized glitch but a nationwide shock to working Americans.
Look at the numbers the regulators are reporting — UnitedHealthcare sought a 66.4 percent increase in New York, and state-level averages are showing 10 to 30 percent jumps in places from Maryland to Washington. These aren’t exaggerations from pundits; they are the actuarial memos insurers must submit under state review, and they show companies preparing for a much sicker, much smaller pool of customers if current federal policy changes stand. Put bluntly: sticker shock is coming for anyone who buys insurance on their own.
The primary driver is predictable: the temporary, massive premium subsidies put in place during the Biden years are scheduled to lapse, and independent analyses show the result will be catastrophic increases in what ordinary Americans actually pay. KFF’s modeling found that average out-of-pocket premium payments for subsidized Marketplace enrollees could more than double if those enhanced credits expire, turning modest monthly bills into untenable monthly obligations for millions. When Washington makes a habit of handing out taxpayer money and then leaves it to sunset, ordinary Americans get left holding the tab.
Insurers and market analysts are candid about the political causes: regulators finalized a Marketplace Integrity rule, Congress is debating big changes, and the overall policy whiplash has insurers pricing in enormous uncertainty. That uncertainty has real consequences — carriers have warned they may exit markets, and some already are shrinking their footprint, meaning fewer choices and higher prices for rural and middle-America families. This is the predictable result of throwing policy darts from the top without thinking through incentives for patients, providers, and insurers.
Conservatives should not respond to this crisis with more central planning or with cheap political handouts that create dependency and clog the system. The answer is market competition, tort reform, common-sense deregulation — things that lower prices and expand access for the working class, not more Washington promises that evaporate when it’s time to pay. Empower HSAs, allow insurance to be sold across state lines, crush certificate-of-need barriers that prop up uncompetitive hospital monopolies, and give consumers real price transparency so competition can work. These are pro-worker solutions, not a bailout for an industry that has benefitted for decades from cozy regulation and opaque pricing.
The political lesson is simple: voters will face the bill for Washington’s spending and mismanagement, and they’ll remember who voted for the short-term freebies and who warned that the hangover would come. Hardworking Americans deserve leaders who tell them the truth and fight to restore choices and fiscal sanity — because no one in Washington is going to fix this until they are held accountable at the ballot box.
