OMG, have you seen your 2026 Health Insurance costs yet?

My wife (58) and I (64) recently found out our doctors would no longer take Molina insurance. We earn enough from our retirement funds to not be subsidized and were already paying full price at $1600 a month with a $6k/10k deductible (each/family).

We looked through both the marketplace and directly at private insurance plans once we got a list from each of our doctors. The most comparable plan we could find is Regency Cascade Bronze and will now have to pay $2350 a month with a $10/20k deductible. That's estimated to cost $34k each year!

Wow… this is a lot. It's a house mortgage or a couple new car's worth.

We are healthy, but not so healthy to bite the bullet and skip the insurance. But, what about people who can't afford to pay this? Will they just stop paying and deal with whatever comes? If more of the healthy people stop buying insurance then doesn’t that make the risk pool even riskier and thus the insurance companies will raise prices even higher? This is starting to sound like a death spiral for the insurance system.

The rates are slightly better for younger people, but they are less likely to afford these prices. The only rosy picture is next year I can go on Medicare and pay about $350/mo for the extended plan.

Go to https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org/ or your Insurance company's web site and check out your own plan ASAP, prepare for sticker shock.

If you want a broader picture of the rates, see the documents at the WA State Insurance Commissioner.

https://fortress.wa.gov/oic/consumertoolkitrt/Search.aspx 

The charts here are from the Regency tables and show the rates by age. There is one for every agency.