New federal numbers just landed, and they are ugly for Arkansas. Over the past year, the state lost 14,441 people from its Affordable Care Act health plans — a 10% drop. Arkansas had 144,140 people covered in February 2025. By February 2026, that number had fallen to 129,699. That is according to a new 50-state breakdown posted by the Trump administration in late June and first reported by The Associated Press.

Arkansas is not alone. Across the country, about 2.6 million fewer Americans had Obamacare plans this February compared to a year earlier. Ohio and Oklahoma each lost nearly a third of their enrollees. The data does not show where those people went. But as KFF healthcare expert Cynthia Cox put it, the ACA marketplace is usually a "place of last resort" — so most of them are likely going without insurance.

Here is the part your Republican members of Congress do not want you to think about: this did not just happen. They chose it.

Why coverage collapsed

For a few years, the federal government gave people extra help — called enhanced premium tax credits — to bring down the cost of their monthly insurance bills. Those extra subsidies expired on January 1, 2026. When they went away, many families watched their premiums double or triple. Some could not afford it, so they dropped their coverage entirely.

Analysts say the drop was more likely down to the expired subsidies, along with other changes. The Trump administration's health department tried to blame it on a crackdown on "phantom" or fake sign-ups. An insurance regulator in a Republican state allowed that the crackdown was one reason — and then named a bigger one. Mike Rhoads, deputy commissioner of life and health at the Oklahoma Insurance Department, said the biggest factor in his state was simple: "It's all about affordability at this point in time."

Keeping those subsidies alive was a decision Congress could have made. Democrats and even some Republicans pushed to renew them last fall. But the Republican majority — the party that runs the House, the Senate, and controls Arkansas's entire congressional delegation — let them lapse.

Arkansas's delegation had the power to stop this

Every single person Arkansas sends to Washington is a Republican, and every one of them owns a piece of this. Their own report cards spell it out.

• Tom Cotton, Arkansas's senior senator, voted to cut more than $1 trillion from federal health care and food assistance as part of Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill," and in December voted to block the bill that would have extended the ACA tax credits — the exact move that just cost 14,441 of his constituents their coverage.
• Rick Crawford represents the rural 1st District, where hospitals run on thin margins and every lost insured patient makes it harder to keep the doors open.
• French Hill of central Arkansas backed the same agenda that raised health costs for working families across the state.
• Steve Womack of northwest Arkansas voted the party line while premiums climbed for the people he was sent to serve.
• Bruce Westerman of southern and western Arkansas did the same — no fight to protect the coverage his neighbors were losing.

Not one of them stood up and demanded the subsidies be renewed. Not one of them put their constituents ahead of the party.

The affordability lie

Here is the hypocrisy. With the November elections coming up, voters keep saying that affordability is one of their top concerns. Republicans love to talk about lowering costs for regular people. But when they had a clear, direct chance to keep health insurance affordable for tens of thousands of Arkansans, they let the help expire.

And it gets worse. When fewer healthy people carry insurance, the people who stay end up paying more — so premiums for everyone left in the market are expected to climb again next year. The Oklahoma official quoted in the report warned insurers are already forecasting more rate hikes. So this is not a one-time hit. It is a hole that keeps getting deeper.

This lands on top of even bigger cuts. Arkansas stands to lose an estimated $8.9 billion in federal Medicaid funds over the next decade — money that keeps rural hospitals open. Advocates warn the state's already-troubled health picture could get much worse. Arkansas already ranks 48th in the country on health care access, affordability and outcomes, and 49th in infant mortality. Losing insurance coverage is the last thing the state can afford.

One state chose its people. Arkansas's leaders didn't.

Want proof there was a choice? Look at New Mexico. It was the only state in the country where coverage went up — enrollment grew about 14%. Why? Because New Mexico used its own state money to fully replace the lost federal subsidies. Lawmakers there passed a plan to keep helping people afford coverage, and the governor signed a bill to keep it going through mid-2027.

"In New Mexico, we believe health insurance should protect people against medical debt, not cause it," said Tim Fowler of the New Mexico Health Care Authority.

That is what leadership looks like. Arkansas got the opposite. Its senators and representatives had the power to protect their neighbors' coverage — and 14,441 fewer Arkansans have it because they didn't use it.

We need healthcare to live. Literally. What are Arkansas's Republicans doing to help? Making it worse. We deserve better.

Source

Based on "Obamacare rolls shrank dramatically in many states over the past year: Data" (The Associated Press, via KARK). Photo: AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File.