Short answer: The enhanced premium tax credits that boosted ACA Marketplace subsidies from 2021 onward expired on December 31, 2025. Average subsidized premium payments roughly doubled, and the “subsidy cliff” above 400% of the federal poverty line returned.
From 2021 through 2025, temporary “enhanced” premium tax credits made Marketplace coverage far cheaper: they increased subsidy amounts and removed the 400%-of-poverty income cap so that no one paid more than a set percentage of income.
Those enhancements expired at the end of 2025. As a result, average out-of-pocket premium payments for subsidized enrollees roughly doubled (one KFF estimate put it near $888 to $1,904 per year), and the income cliff returned: people earning just over 400% of the federal poverty line can again lose subsidies entirely.
One side effect: because higher earners may no longer get a subsidy, the old objection that an employer HRA “blocks my big subsidy” matters less, which has made ICHRA and QSEHRA more attractive.
The base premium tax credit did not disappear; it reverted to its smaller pre-2021 form. In January 2026 the U.S. House passed a three-year extension of the enhanced credits, but as of mid-2026 the Senate had not acted, so the enhanced subsidies remain expired.