Floridians brace for loss of Affordable Care Act subsidies

ORLANDO, Fla. — With millions of Americans potentially losing Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies, people in Central Florida are bracing for what that could look like for them financially.

What You Need To Know

• Millions of Americans face losing enhanced ACA subsidies
• Recipients like Eimear Roy in Central Florida are bracing for higher costs and less coverage
• ACA open enrollment continues until Jan. 15 for coverage starting Feb. 1

One ACA recipient says her family is facing the possibility of higher costs and less health care coverage.

Originally from Ireland, Eimear Roy carries on the tradition of a warm cup of tea.

“I have a whole selection of anti-inflammatory teas,” said Roy.

It’s also part of a strict diet. She says she must drink and eat as healthily as she can to make up for what she says is a lack of adequate health care coverage.

“It’s an antioxidant, and it helps your mood, it helps process your food, it helps stop inflammation,” said Roy.

Roy says with enhanced ACA health care subsidies expiring, she had to make a tough choice – pick a plan that would keep her monthly premium from soaring, but that plan has a nearly $10,000 deductible. That means she’ll be paying out of pocket for most of her health care in the new year. She adds that the lesser plan – the ACA Bronze plan – will offer less health care coverage.

“My long COVID symptoms of tachycardia and lung damage and chronic asthma will not be looked after,” said Roy. “I won’t be able to get the testing I need for autoimmune conditions.”

Roy worries that to keep her premium at an amount she can actually pay, she’ll be sacrificing her health.

“I still have long COVID, so when I wake up on the morning on Jan. 1, 2026, I won’t be able to say to myself, buckle up daisy, because I still have tachycardia in my heart – i just hope my heart and my lungs hold out,” said Roy.

She’s still hoping that lawmakers in D.C. will make a move to keep health care coverage affordable.

“If 81 countries throughout the world can have health care for their citizens, I can’t see why America can’t be that great,” said Roy.

Monday, Dec. 15, was the deadline to sign up for – or change – ACA coverage to get coverage beginning Jan. 1, but people can still sign up for coverage for the year by Jan. 15. That coverage would begin on Feb. 1.