ROLLING FORWARD

About 3 million Californians — including 146,900 in the four-county Sacramento area — will be eligible for tax credits to help them pay for health insurance next year, according to a new study by Families USA.

The subsidies will be paid directly to the health plans in which individuals and families enroll, offsetting the total cost of premiums. This way, they don’t have to lay out the money up front and go to the IRS to recoup some of it.

“The federal tax credits are a game changer,” Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said in a phone call with reporters Tuesday morning. “They make health insurance affordable to a huge number of individuals and families — and they make it more affordable to people currently buying health insurance on their own.”