New Mexico sees record health care exchange sign-ups despite rising costs

More than 84,000 New Mexicans sought health coverage through BeWell, the state’s health insurance marketplace, during open enrollment in late 2025 and early 2026.

It marks BeWell’s third year in a row of record-breaking enrollment, even as health insurance costs rise and after Congress failed to re-up certain federal subsidies for marketplace enrollees.

BeWell CEO Bruce Gilbert called this year’s open enrollment period “remarkable.”

“The need for coverage is high and BeWell is the only place where New Mexicans can qualify to access those crucial subsidies that keep insurance affordable,” Gilbert said in a news release.

The exchange was established as part of the federal Affordable Care Act.

By the end of open enrollment Jan. 15, 84,099 New Mexico residents had enrolled in health and dental insurance through BeWell, outpacing open enrollment in 2025 by more than 12,000 consumers, data from BeWell shows. More than 82,400 customers enrolled in a medical plan, and 24,337 enrolled in dental coverage.

The record enrollment comes amid great upheaval in health insurance policy at the federal level.

Enhanced Premium Tax Credits — a financial assistance program that lowered out-of-pocket premium costs for marketplace enrollees making more than four times the federal poverty level, the equivalent of nearly $130,000 per year for a family of four — expired Dec. 31.

A congressional showdown over the tax credit’s expiration drove the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, which lasted throughout October and early November. Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to extend the expired subsidies — though that proposal has yet to garner approval in the U.S. Senate.

Health insurance premiums will be more expensive in 2026 than in 2025. Individual plans — sold on and off the state health insurance marketplace as part of the Affordable Care Act — will see an average rate increase of nearly 36% in 2026, driven primarily by insurance customers’ higher usage of medical services and prescription drugs in 2024.

But New Mexico residents who get their insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace will be spared the worst of rising health insurance costs in 2026. The Legislature during its regular session in January 2025 and in an October special session allocated about $40 million to fill in for the expiring federal subsidies in the first half of the year.

Proposals for the state to continue to subsidize health insurance costs will likely make an appearance during this year’s legislative session, which started Tuesday. The state Health Care Authority is requesting $103.7 million to extend those subsidies, and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s budget recommendation for fiscal year 2027 includes an $81.1 million line item to reduce health care premiums for those who purchase coverage through the exchange.

© 2026 The Santa Fe New Mexican (Santa Fe, N.M.). Visit www.santafenewmexican.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.