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President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress pursued several major efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) but were unable to get a bill through the U.S. Senate in 2017. In 2018, Congress did pass a tax bill that eliminated the ACA’s tax penalty for not obtaining health coverage beginning in 2019.

In December 2019, a federal appeals court panel ruled that the law’s individual mandate is unconstitutional since Congress has set the mandate tax penalty to zero and sent the case back to a lower court to determine how much of the rest of the ACA should be invalidated. The case was first brought by a number of Republican state attorneys general, and the Trump administration now argues that nearly all of the ACA should be overturned. The U.S. Supreme Court has now agreed to review the case.

For information about ACA Marketplace Open Enrollment, including fact sheets and 300+ FAQs, visit our collection of resources on Understanding Health Insurance.

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August 23, 2018 Issue Brief

Community Health Centers’ Experiences in a More Mature ACA Market

Community health centers provide comprehensive primary care services in some of the most underserved communities in the nation. This brief summarizes findings from the Kaiser Family Foundation/Geiger Gibson Program in Community Health Policy 2018 Health Center Survey to provide a snapshot of health centers’ outreach and enrollment activities as well as changes in service capacity, and overall financial condition since implementation of the ACA.

January 8, 2019 Issue Brief

Medicaid: What to Watch in 2019 from the Administration, Congress, and the States

Medicaid, the provider of health insurance coverage for about one in five Americans and the largest payer for long-term care services in the community and nursing homes, continues to be a key part of health policy debates at the federal and state level. Important Medicaid issues to watch in 2019 include Medicaid expansion developments amid ongoing litigation about the ACA’s constitutionality as well as Medicaid demonstration waiver activities, including those focused on work requirements and other eligibility restrictions. States are also likely to continue to pursue initiatives to address the opioid crisis, and the recent passage of bi-partisan legislation with new tools and financing could bolster these efforts. Primary areas of federal policy to watch in 2019 with implications for Medicaid include the expiration of temporary funding for Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands in the absence of legislative action as well as potential regulatory changes to public charge policies that would likely lead to Medicaid enrollment declines among immigrant families. Finally, reforms in benefits, payment and delivery systems continue to evolve as states and the federal government focus on managed care, social determinants of health, prescription drugs, and community based long-term care. While beyond the scope of this brief, Congress and states could also consider broader health reform that could expand the role of public programs in health care including Medicare for All or Medicaid buy-in programs that could have significant implications for Medicaid.

December 21, 2018 Issue Brief

Abortion Coverage in the ACA Marketplace Plans: The Impact of Proposed Rules for Consumers, Insurers and Regulators

On November 7, 2018, a day after the 2018 midterm elections, the Trump Administration issued a proposed regulation to address “Exchange Program Integrity.” A major element of this proposed rule would affect insurers, consumers, and state insurance regulators in the states that either allow or require abortion coverage. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) allows states to ban plans from offering abortion as a benefit on their Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) and requires plans that cover abortion to segregate policyholder payments for abortion coverage from all other premium charges. This brief provides an overview of current ACA-related abortion coverage policies and analyzes the potential impact of the proposed changes.

February 27, 2019 Issue Brief

An Overview of State Approaches to Adopting the Medicaid Expansion

State approaches to adopting the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion have varied greatly by state based on state law, the political context, or other factors. While it does not cover how every state has enacted the Medicaid expansion, this issue brief highlights some of the different approaches states have taken to adopt the Medicaid expansion. Each state’s circumstances are unique, and the actions taken by one state may not apply to another state’s circumstances.

May 8, 2019 Perspective

The Silent Affordability Crisis Facing Sick People

In this Axios column, Drew Altman shows that employer coverage for lower wage workers is much worse than ACA marketplace coverage for similar populations. It’s a bigger problem we need to talk about more, he says.

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Headquarters: 185 Berry St., Suite 2000, San Francisco, CA 94107 | Phone 650-854-9400
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Filling the need for trusted information on national health issues, the Kaiser Family Foundation is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California.