By the numbers
The number of Wisconsinites enrolled in health insurance purchased through an Obamacare “exchange” reached 313,579 in 2025, the highest number since the system of subsidized coverage began in 2014, data from the Kaiser Family Foundation show.
The Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare, set up a subsidized marketplace of individual insurance plans for those who do not obtain coverage at work but who earn too much money for Medicaid, the coverage system for the poor. In Obamacare, taxpayers cover all or a portion of purchasers’ premiums in the form of a tax credit based on the purchaser’s household income up to four times the poverty level.
Obamacare opened in Wisconsin in 2014 with around 139,800 individuals enrolled. Enrollment climbed until 2017, reaching a peak of 242,863. Enrollment declined gradually to 191,702 in 2021.
A pandemic-era measure, the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, signed by President Joe Biden in 2021, temporarily increased the size of subsidies and added subsidies for households earning more than four times the upper limit of poverty. These “enhanced credits” reversed the enrollment trend.
ARPA specified that the Biden-era additional subsidies will expire at the end of tax year 2025; subsidies will return to pre-pandemic levels unless Congress extends them. That they should be extended is the primary demand of congressional Democrats objecting to the reopening of the federal government.
