Filling the need for trusted information on national health issues
More than a decade after its enactment, the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) remains uncertain as the U.S. Supreme Court takes up another challenge to the law’s constitutionality in California v. Texas (known as Texas v. U.S. in the lower courts). Oral argument is scheduled for Tuesday, November 10, 2020.
The ACA remains in effect while the litigation is pending. However, if all or most of the law ultimately is struck down, it will have complex and far-reaching consequences for the nation’s health care system, affecting nearly everyone in some way.
For information about ACA Marketplace Open Enrollment, including fact sheets and 300+ FAQs, visit our collection of resources on Understanding Health Insurance.
This issue brief answers key questions about California v. Texas (known as Texas v. US in the lower courts), the case challenging the Affordable Care Act to be heard by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court will review the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) this November in California v. Texas. This fact sheet summarizes the major provisions of the ACA, illustrating the breadth of its changes to the health care system. If all of most of the ACA is struck down, many of these provisions could be eliminated.
In this column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses how health care issues have cooled in the election season but matter more for certain voting groups than others, and for “health care voters” encompass more than the Affordable Care Act.
In this post on The Huffington Post, Alina Salganicoff and Laurie Sobel offer a Q&A on “contraceptive-only” plans, an approach mentioned during oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court case Zubik v. Burwell. In the Zubik case, a group of religiously affiliated nonprofits with religious objections to providing birth control coverage seek an exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s provision requiring most plans to offer such coverage without cost-sharing.
In this column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman examines the role of the Affordable Care Act in the health system on its sixth anniversary, and how the hot debate about the law may have created an exaggerated impression of the good and the bad it can do.
This brief explores the problem of “surprise medical bills” — charges arising when an insured individual inadvertently receives care from an out-of-network provider. It reviews studies on the extent of the issue, including Kaiser Family Foundation polling data, and outlines state and federal policy responses, including rules and proposed rules for Medicare and plans in Affordable Care Act marketplaces.
To further understand how the first full year of Medicaid expansion has affected patients who are homeless and the providers who care for them, this analysis uses data from the Uniform Data System (UDS) for health centers to examine changes in insurance coverage, revenues and costs among Health Care for the Homeless (HCH) projects serving the homeless population.
This analysis examines factors that may have kept 2016 enrollment in Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace plans from reaching early projections, and it estimates that sign-ups will continue to grow modestly in coming years.
In this column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses Donald Trump’s health plan and why “repeal and replace” is not a good description for Republican alternatives that have very different objectives than the Affordable Care Act.
This brief identifies a range of successful strategies to reach and enroll Medicaid- and CHIP-eligible individuals as well as options to facilitate renewals. It draws on a collection of previous work examining state enrollment experiences after implementation of the ACA. In sum, it shows that states that have achieved enrollment success have embraced an array of strategies and approaches that include promoting the expansion through strong leadership and collaboration, implementing broad marketing and outreach campaigns, establishing a coordinated and diverse network of assisters, developing effective eligibility and enrollment systems that coordinate with the Marketplace, and planning ahead to translate coverage gains into improved access to care.
Section 1115 waivers authorize research and demonstration projects that, in the view of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, further the purposes of the Medicaid program. The ACA implemented new requirements for these waivers, including that states must have a publicly available, approved evaluation strategy. This brief examines some of the major research questions and hypotheses relevant to the federal and state evaluations of Medicaid expansion Section 1115 waivers and explores key challenges that may hamper research and evaluation efforts.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) extends health insurance coverage to people who lack access to an affordable coverage option. Under the ACA, as of 2014, Medicaid coverage is extended to low-income adults up to 138% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) in states that have opted to expand eligibility, and tax credits are available for middle-income people who purchase coverage through a health insurance Marketplace. Millions of people have enrolled in these new coverage options, but millions of others are still uninsured. Recent analysis shows that 28% or 8.8 million of the 32.3 million non-elderly uninsured are eligible for Medicaid coverage. This issue brief provides a closer look at key characteristics of the uninsured who are eligible for Medicaid and where they live. Analysis is based on state Medicaid expansion decisions as of January 2016 which includes Louisiana’s decision to adopt the expansion. These data may help inform outreach and enrollment efforts to increase coverage gains among the eligible but uninsured population.
