More Americans are likely to drop out of their health insurance plans in the year 2027 as inflation, medical costs and expiring subsidies squeeze household budgets, according to experts.
At the call center of HealthWell Foundation, a nonprofit helping Americans struggling to keep up in northern Maryland, calls came in from across the country.
Many on the other end were older Americans desperately seeking financial help for things their health insurance may not cover, like medication copays, deductibles - even travel costs.
"You're looking at about 1,000 calls a day in a non-peak time and double that in January and February," said Fred Larbi, chief operations manager of the foundation.
Larbi said the center has already handled more than 700,000 calls this year, a more than 60-percent spike from two years ago.
Health insurance costs in the US have soared in recent years, driven by a combination of medical inflation, rising utilization and skyrocketing demand for expensive drugs and treatment.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average work-sponsored plan for a family of four now costs more than 28,000 dollars a year, with about 7,500 of that coming out of employees' pockets.
And that doesn't include their additional expenses for copays or deductibles which can add thousands more.
Five million Americans dropped their health insurance altogether this year after lawmakers allowed some Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies to expire.
Meredith Rosenthal, professor in Health Economics and Policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said the situation may evolve into a death spiral.
"The ones that are most likely to say, 'sorry, I'm out,' are the ones who are not expecting big health care expenditures. And so, premiums go up for everybody, which then means another group can't afford it or has to buy a cheaper plan and so on. This is known as a death spiral. I don't think it's clear that we're in a death spiral yet. I think we'll see what happens to open enrollment in 27," she said.
A recent survey by the benefits consultant Marsh found that employer-sponsored health plans will jump 11 percent next year - the largest increase in more than two decades.
The median ACA plan is set to rise 15 percent.
Factor in new eligibility requirements, experts expect four million more Americans to lose their health insurance in 2027.
At the HealthWell Foundation headquarters, CEO Michael Heimall said he's worried about the year ahead.
"What you see is people will defer care. They won't seek care when they need it. They'll look at ways to maybe split their medications. As we go forward, I think there's going to be a continued number of economic pressures on our patients and on our donors," he said.
More Americans set to drop health insurance in 2027: experts
