Podcast Center
Video Center
Webcasts
Resource Center
Events
November 30, 2017 at 05:03 AM
Killing the Affordable Care Act individual mandate would probably increase the number of Americans without health coverage by 13 million by 2027, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Saving the ACA cost-sharing reduction (CSR) subsidy program would do little or nothing to compensate for the loss of the ACA mandate, CBO analysts predict.
Keith Hall, the CBO director, summarized those conclusions in a letter he sent Wednesday to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. A copy of the letter is available here.
(Related: Lamar Alexander Keeps the Individual Health Rescue Fight Alive)
The CBO is a congressional office that helps members of Congress understand how legislative proposals, and existing statutes, might affect federal spending and the federal budget deficit.
Murray, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has been working with Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., on developing the Bipartisan Health Care Stabilization Act of 2017, a bipartisan bill that seeks to stabilize the individual major medical market while Congress debates bigger changes to the current ACA individual market rules and programs.
The Cost-Sharing Reduction Subsidy
One key part of the Alexander-Murray bill would restore funding for the cost-sharing reduction subsidy program.
Drafters of the ACA created two major subsidy programs to help people buy medical coverage through the ACA public health insurance exchange system. One program, for exchange plan users with income from 138% of the federal poverty level (or, in some states, 100% of the federal poverty level) to 400% of the federal poverty level, provides “advance premium tax credit” (APTC) subsidies.
In most of the country, the APTC subsidy would help a family of four with annual income ranging from about $34,000 to about $98,000.
For most people who use the APTC subsidy, the subsidy has the effect of reducing what people actually pay out-of-pocket each month for coverage.
The other subsidy, the cost-sharing reduction (CSR) subsidy, helps people with income from 138% of the federal poverty level (or 100% of the federal poverty level) to 250% of the federal poverty level pay health plan deductibles, co-payments and coinsurance amounts.
