Sunday is the deadline to buy health insurance for 2020 through the Affordable Care Act's health insurance exchange.
According to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, this year the average premium price in Florida will remain the same. Half of plans had premiums decrease.
Joshua Peck of the advocacy group Get America Covered said the big challenge now isn’t cost - it’s awareness.
“This is a great year to be shopping for coverage in Florida," said Peck. "Right now, three out of four healthcare.gov customers can find a plan for $10 or less, and four out of five can find one for $75.”
The average premium under the Affordable Care Act in Florida is about $600 a month for a silver plan, but there are subsidies for people making less than $50,000 per year. That means an individual in Orange County making $27,000 annuallywould pay about $180 per month after subsidies.
A recent report from Kaiser Family Foundation that found nearly 695,000 Floridians who currently don’t have health insurance could get the cheapest Affordable Care Act plan for free after subsidies.
“One third of Floridians can get a bronze plan for zero dollars a month," Peck said. "That is just a staggering statistic.”
The Affordable Care Act’s tax penalties for adults who do not have health insurance were eliminated by Congress this year, although some states have introduced their own tax penalties.
Nationwide, more than 3.8 million Americans have bought health insurance on the exchanges so far, including more than a million Floridians. The overall number of people signing up for health insurance is down about 6 percent from last year, but Florida is one of three states with more people enrolling.
