Advocacy group says more than 113,000 Ohioans are now going without Affordable Care Act coverage

By Susan Tebben / February 16, 2026

Doctors, retired Ohioan say Affordable Care Act changes will make Ohio less healthy

According to the health care advocacy group Protect Our Care, more than 113,000 Ohioans are forgoing health care coverage on the federal Marketplace because of a congressional decision requested by the Trump administration to let tax credits expire on Affordable Care Act premiums.

An Ohio legislator, a fellow doctor, and a retired Ohioan all said drops in enrollment to the Affordable Care Act due to the loss of federal assistance could cause longterm issues in the state.

The Ohio drop is the fourth highest in the country, behind North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, a study from the group found. Nationally, 1.2 million people have left the federal program.

The expiration of those tax credits meant increases in the amount Americans are paying for the Affordable Care Act coverage, sometimes doubling the amount needed to pay for the coverage.

“For me, the way I look at it, I have to pay $1,000 a month for the privilege of spending $10,000 a year in deductibles, just to have catastrophic coverage,” said Ohioan John Francis, on a virtual briefing hosted by Protect Our Care.

Francis is a retiree who thought the ACA would be a good option as he waited to be eligible for Medicare at age 65. While he has chosen to continue on the insurance plan because he can afford it, he understands how quickly health coverage could become out of reach for Ohioans because of the cost.

He said seeing the cuts to Affordable Care Act tax credits, along with cuts to Medicaid that will amount to a more than $30 billion loss for Ohioans over the next decade, brings about a “moral question” about how America should be helping its own.

“If we’re going to allow people to work full-time and still be at the poverty level, then at least we should have the common decency to cover them with health care,” Francis said. “I don’t know how we can look at it any other way.”

Dr. Anita Somani, an OB/GYN and state representative said the tax credit expiration, along with things like work requirements being instituted into Medicaid, only negatively impact the health of the state and its residents.

“What we’re going to see is people delaying care,” she said.

In her practice, that would mean putting off pre-natal care, mammograms, Pap smears, and other cancer screenings. It could also mean pregnant women with high blood pressure could develop pre-eclampsia, which could lead to a stillbirth.

“Everything points to basically health care costs going up, people getting sicker, people dying,” Somani said.

For Dr. Christopher Brown, an Ohio nephrologist, the changes in federal health care assistance could very well mean issues with his patients getting the care they need for things like strokes and end-stage kidney disease.

“One of the things I really don’t like to see is people that come in with diseases that could have been prevented a long time ago,” Brown said.

The impacts of a lapse in coverage due to affordability could be significant, but Brown said the full ramifications can’t be quantified just yet.

Somani said extending the ACA subsidies and funding to help low-income households, kids who can stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26, and those looking to grow their families could only be helpful for Ohio.

Letting the tax credits expire and keeping the Medicaid cuts will add to an already tenuous health landscape in the state, according to Somani.

“For a (Republican) party that is supposed to be pro-family, these actions are the antithesis of pro-life,” she said.