Analysts at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) have shown how individual and family major medical coverage is for families with moderately high incomes.
The analysts prepared the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) affordability study to carry out an affordability report provision included in PPACA.
The PPACA exchange system now provides exchange plan subsidies for exchange users who earn less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL). In most of the country, the 400 percent of FPL cut-off is $47,080 for a one-person household and $97,000 for a family of four. The cut-off is the same in the New York City area, where the median home had a value of $412,500 in the period from 2010 through 2012, according to Census Bureau data, and Pittsburgh, where the median home had a value of $124,300.
PPACA imposes a penalty on many taxpayers who can afford “minimum essential coverage” (MEC) and fail to have coverage. But PPACA exempts taxpayers who would have to pay more than 8 percent of their income for MEC from having to pay the penalty.
See also: PPACA subsidy gap hurts the moderately broke
PPACA prohibits insurers from using personal information other than tobacco use when pricing coverage, but it lets them charge older insureds three times as much as they charge younger insureds.