How to Get Free or Low-Cost Health Insurance

Who Qualifies for Subsidies?

Depending on where you live and how old you are, you may qualify for a premium subsidy even if your income is well above 400% of the poverty level. (This will be true through at least 2025, and Congress might decide to further extend that provision.)

However, if the cost of the benchmark plan would already be no more than 8.5% of your income without a subsidy, you would not be eligible for a subsidy.

Even before the American Rescue Plan eliminated the "subsidy cliff," 400% of the poverty level for a family of four amounted to $104,800 in 2021. So subsidy eligibility already extended well into the middle-class and upper-middle class, depending on where the family was located.

Obamacare subsidies are not available to undocumented immigrants. However, most legally-residing immigrants can apply.

(Note that subsidies are not available if you're eligible for employer-sponsored health coverage that's considered adequate, or if you're eligible for Medicaid or premium-free Medicare Part A.)

With the subsidy enhancements created by the American Rescue Plan, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reports that:

• Eighty percent of marketplace enrollees have access to at least one plan that costs $10 or less in monthly premiums after the tax credits are applied.

• More than half of enrollees have access to a silver plan that costs $10 or less in monthly premiums.

Subsidies have made self-purchased health insurance much more affordable, but few people purchase their own coverage. Most people get health insurance from their employer or from the government (Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP).