On July 18, KFF and the Peterson Center on Healthcare released an analysis showing that congressional Republicans’ failure to extend expiring Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits in their One Big Beautiful Bill Act, coupled with other restrictive changes to the ACA in the law, are driving the largest one-year increase in ACA insurance premiums since the first Trump administration. Fox News, which expressed concern over ACA health insurance premium increases during the Obama administration, has entirely failed to report on this Trump-driven premium increase.

The KFF/Peterson analysis explained that “across over 100 ACA Marketplace insurers, premiums are rising by a median of 15% in 2026,” with more than two dozen facing an increase of 20% or more. The analysis stated that increasing costs of health care make up about half of the increase; the rest will come from the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits that Republicans failed to extend in their tax bill and from Trump’s tariffs driving up the cost of medical imports. The analysis also mentioned uncertainty around other changes to the ACA by the Trump administration.

All told, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that more than 8 million people will lose their insurance due to Republican changes to the ACA and the GOP’s failure to extend the enhanced premium tax credits. KFF explained that the end of the tax credits “will increase out-of-pocket premiums substantially and likely lead to millions of people dropping their coverage.” The failure to extend the tax credits alone, according to the KFF/Peterson analysis, “will cause premium payments for subsidized enrollees to increase by over 75% starting in January 2026.”

According to a search of Fox News and Fox Business transcripts on SnapStream between July 18 and noon ETon July 21, neither channel so much as mentioned the ACA premium increases, even though it was widely reported elsewhere.

In contrast, when reports noted big increases in ACA insurance premiums during the Obama administration, Fox gleefully covered them as the beginning of a supposed “death spiral” of the ACA.

• Fox News warned of increased ACA marketplace premiums. During a December 7, 2014, appearance on America’s Newsroom HQ, right-wing economist and future Trump adviser Stephen Moore complained that the passage of the ACA “was supposed to save money” and called a 25% increase in premiums over the previous several years “a gigantic increase.” Fox host Shannon Bream noted that “Obamacare premiums will go up an average of 5%.” [Fox News, America's Newsroom HQ, 12/7/14]

• Fox hosts warned of looming 5% increase in ACA premiums for “the most popular type of plan.” Former Fox host Andrea Tantaros introduced a segment on ACA premiums increasing an expected 5% in 2015, criticizing the Obama administration for describing such price increases as “modest.” The panel, including former Fox News star Tucker Carlson, said increased premium costs would fall primarily on the middle class. [Fox News, Outnumbered, 12/5/14]

• Fox Business host Stuart Varney on premium increases: “It is not affordable. It’s not sustainable. I think this thing is in collapse mode. I think we’re looking at chaos.” During a segment on Fox & Friends, Varney lamented that average premium increases of up to 25% coupled with “whopping great big” deductibles would result in increased out-of-pocket costs for millions of Americans using health insurance exchanges to purchase coverage. Co-host Brian Kilmeade then predicted that “people are going to run for the hills or not sign up [for health insurance coverage] at all.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 10/25/16]

• Fox anchor Bret Baier warned that projected premium increases could indicate a “death spiral” for ACA insurance marketplaces. Baier introduced the segment by noting that premiums were slated to increase next year while many Americans would have only one private insurer available on their insurance marketplace. After outlining further details he noted that “Republicans will pounce on the numbers as confirmation that insurance markets created by the 2010 health overhaul are on the verge of collapsing in what they call a death spiral.” [Fox News, Special Report, 10/24/16]

And when the first Trump administration ended other subsidies that would have kept premiums lower, Fox & Friends covered it in a supportive manner:

Methodology

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network for any of the terms “premium,” “rate,” “tax,” “credit,” or “subsidy” within close proximity to any of the terms “KFF,” “Kaiser Family Foundation,” “ACA,” “Affordable Care Act,” “Obamacare,” “Obama care,” “healthcare,” “health care,” or “exchange” or any variations of the term “insure” from July 18, 2025, when the Kaiser Family Foundation published its analysis projecting 75% premium increases when the Affordable Care Act's enhanced premium tax credits expire at the end of the year, through noon ET July 21, 2025.

We timed segments, which we defined as instances when the projected ACA premium increase was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the premium increase. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the premium increase with one another.

We also timed mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned the premium increase without another speaker engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the premium increase scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

Update (7/21/25): This piece has been updated with details about the embedded videos.