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BTD Health Policy in 2026

Health Policy in 2026

President and CEO Dr. Drew Altman forecasts eight things to look for in health policy in 2026. “First and foremost,” he writes, “is the role health care affordability will play in the midterms.” And, he notes: “The average cost of a family policy for employers could approach $30,000 and cost sharing and deductibles will rise again after plateauing for several years.”

View all of Drew’s Beyond the Data Columns

New and Noteworthy

Policy Changes Bring Renewed Focus on High-Deductible Health Plans

Policy changes, anticipated increases in premium costs for enrollees, and new standards for health savings accounts may encourage consumers to seek out plans with lower premiums but higher deductibles. This issue brief explores the features of bronze and catastrophic plans, coverage and costs, and the complicated choices consumers face.

Explaining Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRAs)

Examining Short-Term Limited-Duration Health Plans

Health Savings Account Provisions in the 2025 Tax and Spending Law

Consumer Experiences with Health Insurance

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  • A Guide to the Supreme Court’s Review of the Contraceptive Coverage Requirement

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief dissects the issues raised by the legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that private insurance plans include contraception as part of their coverage of preventive services for women. Over 40 for-profit corporations and over 40 nonprofit corporations have filed lawsuits claiming that the requirement to provide their employees with contraceptives violates their religious rights. On November 26, 2013, the Supreme Court agreed to hear two cases filed by for-profit corporations, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties, that claim that this requirement violates their religious rights. At the crux of these cases is a question that the Supreme Court has not previously addressed: Do for-profit corporations have religious protections under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment? The brief provides background on how the ACA’s contraceptive requirement works, summarizes some of the legal challenges brought by for-profit and non-profit organizations and discusses the implications of potential rulings by the Supreme Court.

  • How Will the Uninsured in West Virginia Fare Under the Affordable Care Act?

    Fact Sheet

    This state report explains how the ACA expands coverage in West Virginia, including a breakdown of how many uninsured people are eligible for Medicaid, how many are eligible for financial assistance to help them buy private insurance in the new Marketplace and how many will not receive any financial assistance at all. The report also details, in specific dollar figures, the income levels at which people in West Virginia are eligible for Medicaid or financial assistance in the Marketplace. For states not expanding Medicaid, the report quantifies how many uninsured people fall into the “coverage gap,” meaning they will be ineligible for financial assistance in the Marketplace or for Medicaid in their state despite having an income below the federal poverty level.

  • Data Note: How Many People Have Nongroup Health Insurance?

    Issue Brief

    The implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has focused attention on the composition of the nongroup market: how it looked before the new regulatory provisions take effect and how it will change afterwards. There are several ways of answering this question, depending on the time period for measuring enrollment and the information source. There is substantial turnover among people with nongroup coverage, which means that the number of people covered at the beginning of a year (or at any other point in time) is quite different than the number of people who keep that coverage throughout the whole year.

  • How Premiums Are Changing In 2018

    Issue Brief

    Maps illustrate how premiums in Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces changed for 2018 by looking at the change in the lowest-cost bronze, silver and gold plans by county; counties where an individual’s tax credit covers the full premium of the lowest-cost bronze plan; and counties where the unsubsidized premium for the lowest-cost gold plan has a lower or comparable premium to the lowest-cost silver plan in 2018.

  • One Big Thing People Don’t Know About Single Payer

    From Drew Altman

    In this Axios column, Drew Altman discusses a challenge for single payer which has not received much attention – a large share of the American people do not think they would have to change their current health insurance arrangements if there were a Medicare-for-all style single payer plan.