Kaiser Examines Premium Affordability

A new issue brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation looks at the affordability of health insurance premiums for plans on the ACA marketplace. The brief entitled “How Affordable are 2019 ACA Premiums for Middle-Income People?” looks at the population of consumers who are above 400% of the Federal Poverty Level (“FPL”) and therefore are not eligible for tax credit subsidies. Enrollment data shows that the number of consumers enrolled in plans who are not eligible for the subsidies has decreased dramatically from 2015 to 2018 (6.4 million down to 3.9 million). The brief goes into detail as to how the increase in premiums has correlated to the amount of money premiums cost as a percentage of income for consumers and discusses some of the policy alternatives which have been discussed to address these issues.