Florida Health Insurance Marketplace Guide

To qualify for Florida Health Insurance Marketplace coverage, you must:⁸

• Live in Florida
• Be a U.S. citizen, national, or lawfully present in the U.S.
• Not be incarcerated
• Not be enrolled in Medicare

But those rules just allow a person to enroll in coverage through the exchange. Eligibility for financial assistance (premium subsidies and/or cost-sharing reductions) through the Health Insurance Marketplace depends on how your household income compares with the cost of the second-lowest-cost Silver plan in your area.

In addition, to qualify for financial assistance with your Marketplace plan you must:

• Not be eligible for Medicaid or CHIP (Florida KidCare), or premium-free Medicare Part A.⁹
• Not have access to affordable employer-sponsored health coverage. If your employer (or your spouse’s employer) offers coverage but you feel it’s too expensive, you can use our Employer Health Plan Affordability Calculator to learn whether you might be eligible for premium subsidies in the Florida Marketplace.
• If married, file a tax return jointly with your spouse.¹⁰
• Not be able to be claimed by someone else as a tax dependent.¹¹
• Starting in 2027, if you’re not a U.S. citizen, you’ll need to be a lawful permanent resident (LPR), Cuban-Haitian entrant (CHE), or COFA migrant to qualify for Marketplace subsidies. All other immigration statuses will no longer be eligible for subsidies. ¹²

Open enrollment for Florida’s 2027 ACA-compliant individual and family health plans runs from November 1, 2026 through January 15, 2027. Enrollments must be completed by December 15 to have a January 1 effective date.

HHS intended to shorten the enrollment window starting in the fall of 2026, ending it in mid-December. But that change was vacated by a judge in June 2026.¹³

Outside of open enrollment, you can only enroll or switch plans if you meet the special enrollment period (SEP) requirements. Most SEPs require a qualifying life event, such as losing coverage, getting married, or permanently moving, but American Indians and Alaska Natives can enroll year-round.¹⁴

To sign up for a Florida Health Insurance Marketplace plan, you have several enrollment options:

1. Online through HealthCare.gov.
2. By calling the Marketplace Call Center at (800) 318-2596.
3. With the help of licensed agents, navigators, or certified application counselors or an approved enhanced direct enrollment entity.¹⁵
4. Mailing in a paper application

Go to localhelp.HealthCare.gov to find a navigator, certified application counselor, or agent in your area.

You can find affordable individual and family health insurance in Florida through HealthCare.gov, which is Florida’s ACA exchange/Marketplace.

During open enrollment for 2026 coverage, more than 95% of Florida’s Health Insurance Marketplace enrollees qualified for premium subsidies.¹⁶ These subsidies, called Advance Premium Tax Credits (APTC), lower your monthly premiums.

The subsidies averaged $740/month, and the average subsidy-eligible enrollee was paying about $62/month for their coverage after the subsidies were applied.¹⁶

Most Marketplace enrollees do still qualify for subsidies, but the subsidies don’t cover as much of enrollees’ total premiums in 2026, and are no longer available to enrollees with household income above 400% of the federal poverty level. This is because Congress did not extend the federal subsidy enhancements that had been in place from 2021 through 2025, so they expired at the end of 2025.

If your household income is between 100% and 250% of the federal poverty level and you select a Silver plan through the Florida Health Insurance Marketplace, you will also receive cost-sharing reductions (CSR). While APTCs help reduce health insurance costs, CSRs reduce out-of-pocket costs like deductibles, copayments, or coinsurance.

As of early 2026, nearly half of Florida’s Marketplace enrollees were receiving CSR benefits.¹⁶ But this was down from about two-thirds of enrollees the year before,¹⁷ because many enrollees switched from Silver plans to Bronze plans (thus forfeiting their CSR), in order to keep their premiums affordable when the premium subsidy enhancements expired.

Source: CMS.gov ¹⁶

Medicaid and Florida KidCare (CHIP) are options for affordable health insurance in Florida if you qualify for either program.

Alternatively, short-term plans offer low-cost health coverage, for people who aren’t eligible for Medicaid or a Marketplace subsidy. These plans can also be used for temporary coverage by people who missed the annual enrollment period for ACA-compliant coverage. But short-term health insurance is much less robust than ACA-compliant coverage, generally does not cover pre-existing conditions or all of the essential health benefits, and should not be considered an adequate substitute for ACA-compliant major medical coverage.

Twelve insurers are offering coverage through the Florida Health Insurance Marketplace for 2027,³ (coverage areas vary by carrier).⁴

All twelve of those carriers also offered Marketplace plans in Florida in 2026. But there are some changes for 2027, including:

• Molina is exiting the Marketplace and will not offer individual market coverage in Florida for 2027.¹⁸ Molina enrollees need to select new plans for 2027.
• Cigna (which has two Marketplace entities in Florida in 2026: Cigna HMO and Cigna Health & Life, and plans available in 11 counties)¹⁹ will no longer offer plans in 2027 (in any state). Cigna enrollees need to select new plans for 2027.²⁰
• Sunshine State Health Plan has filed a discontinuation notice. If members don’t select their own replacement plan, they will be transitioned to an Ambetter/Centene Venture Company plan (both have the same parent company and Ambetter/Centene plans will continue to be available).²¹

Notable changes for 2026 included:

• Aetna exited at the end of 2025 (as was the case in all states where they offered individual market coverage).
• Community Care Network Inc. (22 Health) was new for 2026²² (plans only available in Broward County).²³
• Cigna added new HMO plans in 2026, sold under a separate entity (Cigna Healthcare of Florida, Inc.). But as noted above, Cigna is exiting the Marketplace altogether at the end of 2026.

The following average rate changes (calculated before subsidies are applied) have been approved for 2027 for the individual/family insurers that offer coverage through Florida’s Health Insurance Marketplace, amounting to a weighted average increase of 10.4%:⁷

Source: Florida Office of Insurance Regulation⁷

Average rate changes are calculated before subsidies are applied. Most Florida exchange enrollees receive subsidies that cover the majority of the premium cost in 2026.¹⁶ But because Congress did not extend the federal subsidy enhancements that had been in place since 2021, the enhancements expired at the end of 2025. As a result, subsidies are smaller in 2026 than they would have been if the enhancements had been extended, and some people lost their subsidies altogether. This made coverage significantly less affordable, and fewer people enrolled in Marketplace plans for 2026.

For people who get subsidies, overall affordability will remain roughly the same in 2027 as it was in 2026. But again, that’s significantly less affordable than it was in 2025.

Here are some examples of the sort of net premium increases that people experienced in Fort Lauderdale for 2026:²⁴

• 40-year-old earning $40,000:
  • Lowest-cost plan in 2025 was $34/month
  • Lowest-cost plan in 2026 was $110/month
• 60-year-old earning $63,000:
  • Lowest-cost plan in 2025 was $191/month
  • Lowest-cost plan in 2026 was $1,064/month (due to the subsidy cliff)

For perspective, here’s a summary of how full-price premiums in Florida’s ACA-compliant market have changed over the years:

• 2015: Average increase of 7%²⁵
• 2016: Average increase of 9.5%²⁶
• 2017: Average increase of 19.1%²⁷
• 2018: Average increase of 44.7%²⁸ (federal funding for cost-sharing reductions was eliminated)
• 2019: Average increase of 5.2%²⁹
• 2020: Average increase of 0%³⁰
• 2021: Average increase of 3.1%³¹
• 2022: Average increase of 6.6%³²
• 2023: Average increase of 7.2%³³
• 2024: Average increase of 5.3%³⁴
• 2025: Average increase of 7.5%³⁵
• 2026: Average increase of 31.5%²²

4,538,772 selected Florida Marketplace plans during the open enrollment period for 2026 coverage.³⁶ 

Although Florida continues to have the nation’s highest Marketplace enrollment, 2026 enrollment was down about 4% from the year before, when a significant record high of 4,735,415 people enrolled in health insurance through Florida’s Marketplace during the open enrollment period for 2025 coverage.³⁷

Source: 2014,³⁸ 2015,³⁹ 2016,⁴⁰ 2017,⁴¹ 2018,⁴² 2019,⁴³ 2020,⁴⁴ 2021,⁴⁵ 2022,⁴⁶ 2023,⁴⁷ 2024,⁴⁸ 2025³⁷ 2026³⁶

Before the drop in enrollment for 2026, Florida Marketplace enrollment had been increasing for several years in a row (see chart above). The enrollment growth in recent years was due in part to the American Rescue Plan, which improved affordability starting in 2021. The Inflation Reduction Act then extended these improvements until 2025, ensuring coverage remained more affordable than it was before the ARP became law.⁴⁹

But because the subsidy enhancements were allowed to expire at the end of 2025, coverage became less affordable for 2026 and enrollment declined for the first time since 2018.

The enrollment spike in 2024 and 2025 was also due to the “unwinding” of the pandemic-era Medicaid continuous coverage rule. Medicaid disenrollments resumed in 2023 after a three-year pause, and some people who previously had Medicaid transitioned to Marketplace coverage instead.

Healthcare.gov
This is the ACA Marketplace, where you can enroll in a health insurance plan online. You may also get help by calling (800) 318-2596. 

Florida Consumer Action Network (FCAN)
Nonprofit consumer advocacy group that helps Floridians understand their health insurance options.

Florida KidCare
Florida’s health insurance program for children.

FloridaHealthFinder.gov
State-run site to compare and enroll in health plans.

Federally funded Navigator organization: University of South Florida, (813) 396-2898

Florida Office of Insurance Regulation
Licenses and oversees health insurers, brokers, and agents. Helps consumers with complaints. Reviews annual health insurance rate changes. 

Medicare Rights Center
National service with a call center providing advice and information for people with Medicare.