Tomorrow is the last day to sign up for health insurance through Kynect
By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News
The deadline to sign up for federally subsidized health insurance through Kynect, the state’s online portal, is Thursday, Jan. 15, for coverage that starts on Feb. 1.
With the expiration of the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits on Dec. 31, health insurance premiums are much higher for Kentuckians during this year’s open enrollment. Even so, Gov. Andy Beshear stressed the importance of having insurance.
“Open Enrollment ends January 15, and I encourage everybody, you need coverage,” he said at a Jan. 8 press conference. “You can’t roll the dice. Don’t be one injury away, one sickness away from losing it all.”
Priscilla Easterling with Kentucky Voices for Health told WKYT-TV that some Kentuckians could see a $1,000 monthly premium increase.
Easterling advised Kentuckians to seek out a Kynector, who are available in every county and are trained to help Kentuckians enroll in coverage through Kynect; not let their plan auto-renew without shopping the marketplace to ensure they are getting the best option; and to call their lawmakers to let them know the impact of Congress not renewing the enhanced tax credits.
Beshear said even with the “sticker shock” of the plans, as of Jan. 6, 88,000 Kentuckians had enrolled in a Qualified Health Plan for 2026. Last year, he said, this number was about 100,000.
“So you can see a direct impact of Congress’s refusal to extend those tax credits,” he said.
Beshear said that of the 88,000 people who have selected and enrolled in a plan, 12,045 are new enrollees and 10,558 have canceled coverage for 2026. Further, he said, Kynect is seeing people downgrade their plans.
An article by Dr. Eric Lullove titled “Healthcare is About to get a Lot More Expensive,” republished with permission by Blue Amp Media, offers a comprehensive explainer of what the “enhanced tax credit” provided and the fallout from its loss.
Lullove writes that the bottom line is: “2026 marks a pivot point where ‘having insurance’ no longer equates to ‘having healthcare.’” Between the loss of subsidies and the rise of massive deductibles, millions of Americans are becoming “under-insured‘—holding a card in their wallet they are too afraid to use because of the out-of-pocket costs.”
Gov. Andy Beshear added that Congress’s decision to end the enhanced tax credits is “going to cause a significant burden on our people.”
To counter this financial burden, Beshear said he proposed $100 million in his budget to support Kentuckians on Kynect facing health care price spikes due to the federal expiration of the subsidies.
“It’s my hope that the General Assembly will not only act on that, but we could go ahead, if we so choose, and add it to this current budget and make it available as soon as the General Assembly would be willing to move it through,” he said.
It is uncertain as to whether this proposal will be included in the final budget since Beshear, a Democrat, faces a Republican super-majority in each chamber of the General Assembly.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Jan. 8, the U.S. House passed a three-year extension of the enhanced subsidies that expired Dec. 31 by a vote of 230-196, with 17 Republicans voting with Democrats. This allows the enhanced premiums to restart and remain in place through the end of 2028 with no adjustment to the formula. The legislation now heads to the Senate, where it faces an uphill battle as a similar measure failed in December.
