Some states are stepping in to blunt the financial fallout of lapsed federal subsidies for Affordable Care Act health insurance premiums.
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Mexico have all started offering additional state-funded premium subsidies in 2026 in order to help keep insurance premiums from becoming unaffordable for many residents after enhanced federal subsidies expired at the end of 2025, experts said.
In most cases, the state assistance is less generous than the lapsed federal aid, they said.
But state subsidies will help many consumers — especially those with lower incomes — and reduce the number of households that drop their insurance coverage, experts said.
“They soften the blow,” Louise Norris, a health policy analyst for healthinsurance.org, an insurance referral site, said of the state-level premium subsidies.
