Sophany Nuth’s 30-hour-a-week job baking doughnuts doesn’t come with health insurance.

His weekly take-home pay is about $318. With rent, food and other bills, the 35-year-old Seffner fathercouldn’t afford the $400 a month quotes he got from private health insurers to cover him, his wife and two young children.

He was so worried, Nuth considered moving his family to Canada or Australia, which have universal health care.

“It’s a big stress in the family,” he said.

But Nuth is staying in Florida after enrolling his family in a health care plan through the Affordable Care Act marketplace that he found with the help of navigators from the Family Healthcare Foundation. It will cost just $18 a month.

He is one of a record 2.7 million Floridians who have signed up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act for 2022, a 600,000 increase from last year.

The federal program, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010, is more popular than ever nationwide, too. A record 14.5 million people signed up for this year, surpassing the previous high by almost 2 million. That’s despite Republican attempts to challenge it in court and abolish it during President Donald Trump’s term.

That’s due to President Joe Biden’s administration, which spent more on marketing and increased investment in the availability of subsidies through last year’s $1.9 trillionAmerican Rescue Plan, said Jodi Ray, the executive director of Florida Covering Kids & Families.It’s a navigator program based at the University of South Florida in Tampa that coordinates outreach efforts across the state.

The Department of Health and Human Services restored $80 million to fund outreach efforts cut by the previous administration with the goal of quadrupling the number of navigators, who help people pick and enroll in insurance plans. Also, more insurance companies offered plans in the federal marketplace this year and the cost of premiums remained flat or, in some cases, dropped slightly.

Read the full story from Tampa Bay Times here.