Health Insurance Open Enrollment for 2027 Opens Sunday in Texas: The Deadline That Matters Is December 15
Texans who buy their own coverage can enroll, renew or change a HealthCare.gov plan from November 1 through January 15 - but only plans picked by December 15 start on January 1. Here is the Houston reader's version of the calendar.
HOUSTON - Open enrollment for 2027 health coverage opens Sunday, November 1, and in Texas it runs on the federal marketplace at HealthCare.gov. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services puts the window plainly in its Plan Year 2027 fact sheet: open enrollment 'begins on November 1, 2026, and runs through January 15, 2027.'
Inside that window sit two different deadlines, and the first one is the one that decides when coverage starts. Enroll or change plans by December 15, 2026, and coverage begins January 1, 2027. Enroll between December 16 and January 15, and coverage generally begins February 1 instead. After January 15, a Texan generally cannot buy or change a marketplace plan for 2027 unless a life event - losing other coverage, moving, getting married, having or adopting a child - opens a Special Enrollment Period.
The January 15 end date itself was in doubt earlier this year. A 2025 federal rule would have closed the federal window on December 15; a federal judge vacated that provision in June, and CMS confirmed the longer schedule in writing over the summer. The practical advice has not changed: treat December 15 as the real deadline, because it is the last day that guarantees a January 1 start.
For Houston, the window matters at scale: Harris County has one of the largest uninsured populations of any big-city county in Texas, and the marketplace is the main route to subsidized coverage for people who buy insurance on their own - gig workers, early retirees, part-time workers and the self-employed among them. Shoppers can preview 2027 plans and prices at HealthCare.gov without creating an account, and anyone whose income or household changed this year should re-check their application rather than letting last year's plan auto-renew on autopilot.
