Insurers attribute roughly four percentage points of the 2026 Affordable Care Act marketplace increase to a sicker risk pool after healthier enrollees left; KFF says they expect another roughly four-point contribution in 2027. [1]

Thursday's article on ACA enrollment falling by 2.6 million while New Mexico grew said lost subsidies strengthened the affordability explanation without proving why every person departed; the new filing record adds a claimed price consequence; it does not independently prove the cause.

The distinction is adverse selection in plain terms; If healthier customers leave and people expecting greater medical costs remain, insurers may spread expected claims across a smaller, sicker pool; the filings say that happened; regulators still must test assumptions, data and requested rates before approval.

The four points must not be added mechanically to KFF's 14% median requested increase for 2027; the median covers 77 insurers in 16 states and the District of Columbia, with filings still preliminary and the universe incomplete. [1] “Roughly four” is insurer attribution within those requests, not a separate surcharge to place on every plan.

AP's broader coverage confirms another year of double-digit requests and the greater direct exposure facing people without financial help; it does not transform insurer testimony into an independent causal estimate. [2] Partisan X can assign the enrollment decline to one culprit: fraud cleanup, expired subsidies, consumer choice or policy sabotage; no verified status supplied a defensible four-point estimate; the filings offer one testable claim about how healthier exits became price; rate review, state decisions and later enrollment data will show how much of that claim regulators accept.

-- NORA WHITFIELD, Chicago