Federal Budget

This data note analyzes federal funding changes for Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace navigators in 2017 and discusses the implications for both the navigators and consumers. It presents results of a Kaiser Family Foundation online survey of federal marketplace (FFM) navigator programs and includes insights from a roundtable meeting of more than 40 navigators co-hosted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Kaiser Family Foundation.

The Affordable Care Act enacted in March 2010 calls for the establishment of state health insurance exchanges — marketplaces through which individuals and small businesses can purchase affordable insurance. These exchanges must begin operation by January 1, 2014. This October 22 briefing, cosponsored by the Alliance for Health Reform and…

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released an analysis of a bill that would repeal grants to states under the health reform law to help them establish health insurance purchasing exchanges. Not surprisingly, CBO finds that the bill would reduce federal spending due to the fact that expected grants won’t…

The U.S. government is the largest donor to global health in the world. This fact sheet breaks down the U.S. global health budget by program area: HIV/PEPFAR; tuberculosis; malaria/the President’s Malaria Initiative; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; maternal & child health; nutrition; family planning & reproductive health; global health security; and neglected tropical diseases.

These global health budget summaries highlight key information about global health funding levels throughout the federal budget and appropriations process.

This Health Policy 101 chapter provides an overview of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a major reform of the U.S. health care system aimed at reducing high uninsured rates and alleviating issues like high out-of-pocket costs and coverage exclusions for preexisting conditions. The ACA significantly altered many aspects of the health system and the chapter explores its mechanisms, such as the Health Insurance Marketplaces, and the evolution of the law since its passage in 2010.

In this JAMA Health Forum post, Executive Vice President Larry Levitt explores why the incoming Trump administration and Republican majorities in Congress are likely to pursue budget cuts in Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act and why such efforts are likely to boost the number of uninsured Americans.

This analysis illustrates how provisions included in the House budget reconciliation bill could expose Marketplace enrollees with unpredictable incomes to higher penalties when filing taxes if they underestimate their incomes. About one in four potential Marketplace shoppers had incomes that varied at least 20 percent from the beginning to the end of the year.

In his latest column, President and CEO Drew Altman shows how proposals contained in the House reconciliation bill could result in a one-third reduction in ACA Marketplace enrollment. “While all eyes are on the big Medicaid cuts being proposed in the House,” he writes, “significant changes are also being proposed that together would dramatically reduce enrollment in the ACA Marketplaces.”

The House budget reconciliation bill contains various expansions to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). This policy watch explains what HSAs are, how they have been used, what the key changes to HSAs would be, and how much they would cost the federal government.