2026 Open Enrollment

This is the first year that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has included data on how many ACA Open Enrollment Period enrollees selected policies with the help of certified insurance broker, agent or assister (such as ACA Navigators or Certified Assistance Counselors (CACs).

Now it's time to move on to the actual demographic breakout of 2026 Open Enrollment Period (OEP) Qualified Health Plan (QHP) enrollment.

First up: Breaking out new enrollees vs. existing enrollees who either actively re-enroll in an exchange plan for another year or who passively allow themselves to be automatically renewed into their current plan (or to be "mapped" to a similar plan if the current one is no longer available).

Nationally, 15.6% of all exchange QHP enrollees were new this year. The other 84.4% are current enrollees who signed up for another year.

Fortunately, more enrollees took my advice and actively re-enrolled this year (46.3% vs just 39% last year). Unfortunately, 38.1% still allowed themselves to be passively auto-renewed. Those are the ones who, in many cases, were likely hit with massive sticker shock as they were auto-renewed into a plan which probably had dramatically higher premiums due to the enhanced tax credits expiring...over 8.8 million enrollees nationally.

The Virginia Insurance Marketplace has published raw Open Enrollment Period data for 2026; let's take a look at how it compares to last year's OEP:

Here's the overview of Virginia ACA exchange enrollment over the course of OEP 2026 vs. 2025. Stand-alone dental plan enrollment is up 2.3%, which is nice, but overall major medical plan (Qualified Health Plan, or QHP) enrollment dropped by nearly 19,000 people, or 4.8% year over year.

There's also 14% fewer enrollees receiving federal tax credits than last year (nearly 47,000 people), while another 15% lost Cost Sharing Reduction assistance (CSR).