26 years old part-time worker, unable to afford Healthcare.gov plan premiums

Hello, I’m a single 26 year old male, located in Georgia. I work two part-time jobs and take college classes, which means I have no opportunity for an employer-sponsored plan. After aging out of my parents’ health insurance last year I got onto an Alliant catastrophic healthcare plan through Healthcare.gov, and the premium for that was $250 monthly. I am in excellent health and rarely need to visit the doctor, only for biyearly dentist and yearly ophthalmologist visits.

The $250 monthly expense was cutting into my income too much for a service I wasn’t using, and I made the decision to stop paying for it two months ago. Now I have once again applied for coverage through healthcare.gov, hoping to find cheaper rates. To my dismay, the rates for low-quality catastrophic plans have only gone up, with the cheapest premium available now being $275 a month.

I am apparently ineligible for any kind of subsidy or Medicaid due to my income being too high, just above $1400 a month, which is already barely enough to cover rent and monthly expenses anyway.

So I’m calling out to any insurance experts on this subreddit, because I have nobody else to ask. What are my options? I could afford to pay $50 a month for a catastrophic plan, but there’s no way I could pay $275 (not even including the added expenses, copays, co-insurance when actually visiting a doctor). With a $9,100 deductible, I’d essentially be throwing that monthly premium down the drain, which is the reason I stopped paying for it last time.

I’m aware that the health insurance situation in Georgia is especially bad, and there are very few consumer protections and healthcare subsidies here, but unfortunately this is where I’m stuck for the time being. I need to enroll in health insurance during open enrollment period, or I may be going without for all of next year, which is a gamble I don’t want to take.

If anyone has any advice, or if there’s a better subreddit to post this in, I’d be glad to hear it. Thanks for reading.