How much more are ~460,000 OHIO 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.

In most cases this means moving to plans with higher deductibles, higher co-pays & higher coinsurance costs. In many cases this has also included moving to plasn with worse networks, referral requirements to see specialists and so on.

With that in mind, that's exactly what I've decided to set out to do: Calculate the average year over year increase not just in net premiums (that is, how much more ACA enrollees are having to pay each month) but also the year over year change in average out of pocket costs.

Let's look at OHIO:

Here's a look at ACA exchange plan selections during Open Enrollment by household income level this year vs. last.

It's a bloodbath, as the numbers have plummeted by nearly 20% overall and by as much as 69% in some income brackets. The sole bracket where enrollment is barely higher year over year is from 300 - 400% FPL...most likely due to several thousand households who normally earn just over 400% FPL projecting an annual 2026 income below the cut-off point in order to avoid having all federal subsidies stripped away. Of course, those folks are now desperately attempting to make sure that their actual income comes in below the Subsidy Cliff threshold:

That's over 113,000 Ohioans who lost their ACA healthcare coverage before the year even began...and this number is almost certainly far higher as of this writing.

Onto the main analysis:

Here's total Open Enrollment plan selections for both 2025 & 2026 broken out by Actuarial Value (AV) category. The first table is based on official metal level tiers, but it's the second table which is critical, since a huge chunk of ACA enrollees are usually enrolled in CSR Silver plans (which include Cost Sharing Reduction assistance). CSR assistance dramatically boosts the AV of Silver plans up to Platinum levels in most cases.

Again, enrollment is down by double digits at every Metal Level and/or Actuarial Value category except one: High-deductible Bronze plans, which are up 11% year over year (Catastrophic plan enrollment would likely have gone up as well, except that no carriers are bothering to even offer it this year).

Overall, the average Actuarial Value has dropped from 77.7% to 70.6%:

By combining these numbers with the average gross premiums per enrollee I'm able to calculate an estimate of the average total medical expenses each enrollee racks up each year assuming an 80% average Medical Loss Ratio (as I stated in the original post, this can vary widely by carrier and year, so should be considered a very broad average only), which looks like so:

Even with the scramble to "buy down" to cheaper, crappier coverage, average net premiums for the ~469,000 who did manage to select plans during Open Enrollment still skyrocketed by 85% on average, from $126/mo to $233/mo. That's nearly ~$1,300 more in premiums per enrollee per year.

Adding to the depressing news: Downgrading to worse coverage has also resulted in out of pocket expenses jumping by an estimated ~49%, for a combined average healthcare cost increase of ~65%.

That's a total increase from around $3,300 last year to over ~$5,400 per enrollee this year...or over $2,100 more apiece.

In addition, based on KFF's net data, average deductibles also increased by ~36% to ~$5,000 for single coverage this year, and the maximum (theoretical) out of pocket cut-off for all ACA enrollees went up by over 15% this years as well, to $10,600 for single coverage.

Next up: OKLAHOMA.