Oak City Move

In the wake of Affordable Care Act subsidies expiring this year, Autumn welcomes data journalist Hail Zulueta to discuss how 2026's increase in health insurance premium costs caused a decrease in insurance enrollment across North Carolina. Tune in to learn more!
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Creators and Guests

Host
Sophs Magnanini
Public Affairs Director (2025-2026)
Producer
Autumn Smith
Writer and producer for Oak City Move

What is Oak City Move?

A radio program and podcast from WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2 celebrating those who enact positive changes in the Raleigh community.

00:00
Sophs Magnanini
Oak City Move is a podcast on WKNC 88.1 FM HD1 Raleigh, where we highlight people and organizations creating positive change in the Triangle and beyond. Oak City Move can be heard on air Every Monday on 88.1 FM HD1 Raleigh or online at WKNC to listen to episodes and more, go to our blog at WKNC or follow us on SoundCloud at WKNC.

00:30
Autumn Smith
Hi, I'm Autumn Smith and you're listening to WKNC 88.1 FM. If you lost your ACA coverage this year, you're one of many people living in North Carolina dealing with the effects of expired subsidies for health insurance enrollment. NC Local released an article written by Jacob Biba in Hail ACAREAL claiming that ACA enrollment saw a 22% decrease in North Carolina this year. This is the largest drop for any state across the country. Joining me today is writer and data journalist Hayle ACAREAL to discuss the causes. And effects of rising insurance costs.

00:59
Sophs Magnanini
Hello.

00:59
Autumn Smith
Could you say your name and talk. About your position for us please?

01:02
Hail Zulutea
Yeah, so my name is Hayle Zulutea. I'm a senior here at NC State University. I'm studying English, specifically rhetoric and professional writing, along with a minor in science communication and I am a data journalism freelancer for NC Local.

01:17
Autumn Smith
So recently you did a piece with NC Local regarding the rising cost of ACA coverage. How did you get started with that topic?

01:25
Hail Zulutea
I was first reached out to it about through Laura Lee. She was with NC Local and I met her at the McKinnon center and Ben McNeely actually recommended that I do data journalism freelancing with her and she was incredibly nice and she got me involved with a story with the lead reporter, Jacob Biba. Shout out to him. He is really awesome and props to him for writing all of this. He did most of the writing stuff. I did all the data wrangling. So it was just kind of like going back and forth kind of just like him sending me this like data set about Affordable Care act coverage and me kind of just like being able to create visualizations off of it based off the data. And it was, I'm really happy to see like how it was made.

02:14
Hail Zulutea
And for anybody that is able to like pull up the article and is a really cool interactable map that I am extremely proud of.

02:21
Autumn Smith
It's super well done. You did a great job on it.

02:24
Hail Zulutea
Thank you.

02:25
Autumn Smith
With the rising costs of ACA coverage around North Carolina what are the factors that are going into that happening?

02:32
Hail Zulutea
So there are a lot of factors right now. One of the biggest one is that a subsidy kind of just did expire and that's what kind of cause like this increase in ACA costs. I made another arrow chart. For example we can see in Wilkes county There is a 33% price jump and that is not a lot of people can afford that. So gladly and thankfully the ending piece for the NC local article suggested some things such as like if you've lost coverage, KFF Health recommends discussing private pay or other financial options with the medical provider or looking at short term policies. So I'm really happy to see that there is solutions journalism going into this.

03:21
Autumn Smith
But yeah, when you mentioned the subsidy expiring, is that a state or federal issue?

03:26
Hail Zulutea
I think it was federal issue. Not too sure. But when I was given the data set, one of my things about it was that it included not just NC but included counties on all across the nation. And we can assume that a lot of them had fluctuating price changes. In NC specifically we see that there was mostly an increase in these price changes except for two, and that is Clay county and Cherokee County. And that actually saw an increase in enrollment and a decrease in price costs.

04:01
Autumn Smith
And those are all the way in the western North Carolina, correct?

04:03
Hail Zulutea
Yes, all the way in western North Carolina and in Clay county specifically. Specifically we see almost a 67% increase in enrollment since this year.

04:14
Autumn Smith
It's a good number.

04:15
Hail Zulutea
It's a great number.

04:18
Autumn Smith
So unfortunately with, I mean our local counties we're seeing like 15, 20, even like in some parts of North Carolina, 45% decreases in enrollments. When we look at this decrease in the Triangle area, all the surrounding counties, how do you think it's going to affect the community?

04:33
Hail Zulutea
I do definitely think that when it comes to communities that are for example like underfunded or they don't have the funding to be able to purchase options such as short term healthcare options. We are going to see people struggle. But there is a thing that we did want to note that this is just a preliminary snapshot. So this was comparing the numbers from the 2025 ACA enrollment numbers versus the just preliminary snapshot for the ACA 2026 numbers. So there might be a big change. I would say that we are seeing a lot of people starting to struggle because these subsidies have expired. But it is not the end of the world just yet and there is still a lot to be done. I would look closely.

05:22
Hail Zulutea
I have this prototype map that I was looking at and it was, I was able to kind of like various visualize not just the enrollment numbers but the cost increase percents. So let's say, let's talk about Clay and Cherokee county. We see actually a 9% decrease in costs for Cherokee county and a 12% decrease for Clay County. And that's, that is big when it comes to numbers because that could mean hundred two hundred dollars down when it comes to health care. Again, I'm not too sure really. But when we look at extremely populated counties such as Wake county or Mecklenburg county, we do see a 13.35% increase and a for Mecklenburg county and a 16.35% increase in Wake County.

06:13
Hail Zulutea
So if the ACA premiums haven't come out yet, I would definitely like research that and try to factor that into your budget just so you have an like the ability to predict how is this going to affect my budget? Am I going to have to look for short term health care options?

06:29
Autumn Smith
Given the data trends that you're seeing at the current moment, do you think that enrollment is going to continue decreasing as well as costs are going to continue going up?

06:36
Hail Zulutea
That I cannot say for sure. I love data journalism because it shows us what is happening, but it doesn't. It comes to us at a certain point. For example, when we look at Clay county and Cherokee county, we actually don't know the specific reasons why those have an increase in enrollment or a decrease in cost. We can see that it is definitely an outlier compared to all these counties. But the best thing about data journalism is that when we're given these quantifiable statistics, when we're given these numbers, we're essentially kind of like laying out a breadcrumb trail of like. This is an odd thing. This is something that we don't know what's happening just from the numbers. And this needs to be investigated.

07:27
Hail Zulutea
So it really kind of like leaves out that bread crumb trail for other reporters to kind of figure out what is happening in this county. Why is it, why are people able to enroll more? Why is it, why is the cost going down and they can kind of apply that to other counties. Again, with this just being the preliminary snapshot, we can expect to see different fluctuations based on healthcare policies. But for right now I would say, I mean it's not going to stay the same as it is in its preliminary snapshot.

08:02
Autumn Smith
That's at least assuring.

08:03
Hail Zulutea
Yeah, change will come. Change will come. And I hope it's good.

08:06
Autumn Smith
Yes, me too. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about in terms of the data that we're analyzing for this year's ACA coverage?

08:14
Hail Zulutea
I would say this is definitely going to be something that a lot of news stations, not just NC Local is going to be looking at just because healthcare is an incredibly big topic. So I would check, I would check to see if there's like new data coming out pretty consistently because that is hopefully it'll come out in accordance to any like health care policies that are coming out. But I would say to people track that very closely because it can affect lots and lots of communities, not just in nc, but a lot of different communities around the South.

08:49
Autumn Smith
Thank you so much for your time today. It's been great talking with you.

08:52
Hail Zulutea
Thank you. I appreciate it.

08:54
Autumn Smith
That was journalist Hale ACAREAL discussing the rising costs of ACA coverage. There are many factors at play regarding the spike in health insurance costs. According to the University of Maryland School of Public Health, the American Rescue Plan.

09:06
Autumn Smith
Act subsidies that regulated insurance policy costs.

09:08
Autumn Smith
Did not get extended for 2026. While the issue affects the country on a federal level, North Carolinians are experiencing the highest cost increases and enrollment decreases. NC Local highlights that many residents are turning to short term policies with less flexibility or turning to local or private health care options. These trends and patterns will be monitored and analyzed as many people in the Triangle hold out on insurance this year. This has been Autumn Smith with WKNC Public Affairs. Thank you for listening and thank you.

09:36
Sophs Magnanini
All for listening to Oak City Move. If you are interested in listening to this episode again or to past episodes of the show, you can go to WKNC podcast and make sure to tune into our show every other Monday. Now Every Monday on WKNC 88.1 FM Raleigh. Have a great day.