The questions started appearing on Facebook just before Halloween. My West Asheville neighbor posted that he and his family (husband, wife and two school-age children) were going to see their Affordable Care Act marketplace premiums triple. Another single mother of a teenager in our neighborhood asked what would happen if she simply didn’t enroll in health care because of the huge increases.
For me, these aren’t just budget numbers: They are personal. My own daughter, now thriving, benefited from lifesaving health care she needed as a child because of a congenital heart defect. I know firsthand that access to health coverage isn’t a luxury — it is the difference between life and death for our most vulnerable neighbors and children.
These West Asheville residents are just a few of the almost 1 million people in North Carolina who get their health care from the ACA marketplace who have less than two months to figure out how and if they will have health care for themselves and their loved ones in 2026. (Based on statewide figures from 2025, approximately 975,110 people were enrolled in ACA marketplace plans across North Carolina.) These are working people; these are our families…