Individual Market

During the third Affordable Care Act open enrollment period, assistance programs helped an estimated 5.3 million people — a number that was 10 percent lower than the prior year and that included a higher share of people renewing coverage, finds a new Kaiser Family Foundation survey of assister programs and…

A Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of Affordable Care Act proposed marketplace rates finds benchmark silver plan premiums are projected to increase 10 percent in 2017 on average across 14 major metropolitan areas. Based on proposed rate filings in 13 states plus the District of Columbia where complete information is currently…

Premium increases in the health insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will likely be higher in 2017 than in recent years; however, the actual average benchmark premium in the ACA marketplaces in 2016 is below what the Congressional Budget Office projected for 2016 before the health law was passed. How actual marketplace premiums compare to what CBO expected in doing those budget projections is an important factor in determining whether the ACA continues to be on track to reducing the deficit.

In this Wall Street Journal Think Tank column, Drew Altman discusses the latest challenges faced by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces and why they should be kept in perspective: “If Obamacare had bipartisan support, they would be treated much more like mundane implementation issues to be addressed by Congress than glaring headlines about Obamacare failure.”

To gauge whether individual market risk pools are healthier in states that have expanded Medicaid and did not allow transitional plans, this data note compares average state risk scores using data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Summary Report on Risk Adjustment for the 2015 benefit year. The analysis finds that states that expanded Medicaid and did not allow transitional plans had lower average risk scores, suggesting the risk pools in those state’s markets are healthier than in non-expansion states and in states that allowed transitional plans.

On Tuesday, October 25, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. ET, the Kaiser Family Foundation will examine key issues affecting this year’s annual Affordable Care Act enrollment period and answer audience questions during a web briefing.

This brief analyzes 2017 Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace data on premium and insurer participation, including data made available through Healthcare.gov on October 24, 2017, as well as data collected from states that run their own exchange websites.

State data from the Kaiser Family Foundation estimate that 9.4 million Americans who bought health plans through Affordable Care Act marketplaces will receive a total of about $32.8 billion in premium tax credits for 2016. A repeal of the health law would eliminate these subsidies.

As the 115th U.S. Congress deliberates the future of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, a new interactive map from the Kaiser Family Foundation provides estimates of the number of people in each congressional district who enrolled in a 2016 ACA marketplace health plan and the political party of each district’s representative as of January. The analysis also includes maps charting by state the total number of people enrolled under the ACA Medicaid expansion in 2015, along with the political parties of the governors and U.S. senators.