The ColoHealth Health & Wealth Newsletter
June 2026
Vol. 29, Issue 6

Should You Move From Insurance to a Healthshare?

For the Coloradans who earn too much for a subsidy and too little to shrug off a full-price premium, the real question is not which plan to pick. It is whether traditional insurance is even the right tool.

First, What a Healthshare Actually Is

A healthshare is not insurance, and that distinction matters more than anything else on this page.

A health sharing plan, sometimes called a healthcare sharing ministry or a health cost-sharing program, is a membership organization. Members pay a monthly contribution into a shared fund, and the group shares in each other’s eligible medical bills. There is no carrier promising to pay your claims. There is a community agreeing to share costs according to published guidelines.

Because a healthshare is not insurance, it is not regulated by the state, it does not guarantee payment, and most programs place limits on pre-existing conditions and may not share routine items like some preventive care. Those are real trade-offs, and an honest comparison has to start there. For a fuller picture, see what a Colorado healthshare is and how it works.

Who Healthshares Are Built For

Healthshares tend to fit one kind of Coloradan in particular: the one the Affordable Care Act leaves out.

Most Colorado households can qualify for income-based premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act. But a large group of residents are left out of those affordability provisions, usually because they work hard and earn just enough to be cut off. These are the people paying full price for traditional insurance, and they are the ones for whom a healthshare most often pays off.

A healthshare tends to fit people who are generally healthy, who do not qualify for a meaningful subsidy, and who are comfortable with a community-based model. It tends not to fit people who rely on a subsidy to make insurance affordable, who have significant ongoing health needs, or who want the guaranteed payment and consumer protections of a regulated plan. 

ColoHealth’s standard is an honest comparison, not a sales pitch, so be wary of anyone who tells you a healthshare is right for everyone.

Why More Coloradans Are Asking This in 2026

This year pushed a lot of people into that left-out group for the first time.

The enhanced premium assistance that held down ACA costs from 2021 through 2025 expired at the end of last year, and the subsidy cliff returned on January 1. In 2026 the income line depends on your household: about $62,600 for a single person, $84,600 for a two-person household, and $128,600 for a family of four. 

Earn a dollar over the line that applies to your household and you pay full price. For a household just over its line, that can run thousands of dollars a month. 

According to the Colorado Division of Insurance impact analysis by county, some rural counties face net premium increases above 300 percent. That is the moment a healthshare moves from interesting to worth a serious look.

How to Tell if a Healthshare Fits You

Here is the part that makes this a June decision, not a November one: unlike a marketplace plan, you can typically join a healthshare at any time of year. So you can work through this now.

  • Check whether you are receiving a subsidy first. If you do, and it makes traditional insurance affordable, that usually wins. If you are over your household’s cliff, keep going.
  • Take an honest look at your health. Healthshares share routine and unexpected costs well, but they are built around guidelines and limits, especially for pre-existing conditions. Read those guidelines before anything else.
  • Compare your real monthly numbers. Put your full-price 2026 premium next to a healthshare’s monthly contribution and its sharing amount, then compare like for like, including what each one does and does not share.
  • Talk it through with your Personal Benefits Manager (PBM). They can walk you through which programs are available in Colorado, what each one shares, and where the gaps are, with no pressure to switch.

Question of the Month

True or false: a healthshare is just a cheaper kind of health insurance.

Answer. False, and the difference is the whole point. A healthshare is not insurance. It is a group of members who agree to share each other’s medical costs, with no carrier guaranteeing payment and no state regulator standing behind it. For the right person it can cost far less than a full-price plan. For the wrong person, the limits can be a costly surprise. That is why fit matters more than price.

See if a Healthshare is Right for You

The only way to know is to compare your actual numbers against the programs available in your situation. That is exactly what your PBM  does, at no cost and with no pressure.

→ Talk to your PBM  about your Colorado healthshare options

Ready to make the most of your HSA? Schedule your free HSA strategy consultation at www.ColoHealth.com.

Check out our latest blog posts:

To Your Health and Wealth,

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Wiley P. Long III
President- ColoHealth

 

Author of Health Sharing: The Authoritative Guide to America’s Fastest-Growing Health Insurance Alternative

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