This was published as a Wall Street Journal Think Tank column on April 21, 2015. Tax season has come and gone with no great outbreak of protest about the Affordable Care Act’s least popular provision: the individual mandate. This central element of the ACA was included to help ensure that the individual…

As tax season closes, Drew Altman looks at why the ACA’s individual mandate and tax credit reconciliation process “passed their first major hurdles this tax season with no significant public backlash,” in his latest column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank.

 3.5 Million Could Have a Zero-Dollar Premium Contribution or Pay Less for Health Insurance than Penalty Due to Premium Subsidies; 7.1 Million Would Pay More to Get Coverage A new analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that among uninsured people who are eligible for an Affordable Care Act marketplace plan,…

The YouToons help consumers understand health insurance by explaining health insurance premiums, out-of-pocket costs, and provider networks. These three videos are excerpts from the 2014 YouToons video, Health Insurance Explained – The YouToons Have It Covered.

At a time when some states are considering changes to their Medicaid programs, the February Kaiser Health Tracking Poll measures Americans’ attitudes toward Medicaid and examines views on work requirements and lifetime limits on benefits. The poll also continues to find the public leaning favorably towards the ACA, with this month marking the highest level of favorability since 2010. When asked to say in their own words what health care issue they most want 2018 midterm candidates to discuss, voters mention health care costs as their top concern.

This brief examines recently-released annual financial data from 2017 and finds insurers selling individual market plans had their best financially since 2014, when new ACA insurance market rules took effect that guaranteed access to coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. At the same time, recent political and policy changes, including the repeal of the individual mandate penalty as part of tax reform legislation and proposed regulations to expand loosely-regulated short-term insurance plans, cloud plans’ outlook going forward.

A new Kaiser Family Foundation analysis finds that more than half (54% or 5.9 million) of the 10.7 million people who are uninsured and eligible to purchase an Affordable Care Act marketplace plan in 2018 could pay less in premiums for health insurance than they would owe as an individual mandate tax penalty for lacking coverage.

The Alliance for Health Reform and the Kaiser Family Foundation co-sponsored this briefing to have a panel of experts answer questions about how public support for health reform waxes and wanes depending, not only on what’s being proposed in the reform proposals, but also on who asks the question and…

The so-called “individual mandate”  – the provision under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that requires most individuals to carry a minimum level of insurance coverage and is now being considered by the Supreme Court – has emerged as the least popular element of the reform law and the prime target for…

This brief examines four options to promote the sale of health plan options in the individual or non-group market that are not subject to Affordable Care Act (ACA) requirements for other major medical health plans. It reviews the trade-offs involved if such loosely regulated markets take root as an alternative to the ACA-regulated market, particularly as the repeal of the individual mandate penalty takes effect next year.