Modifying the ACA’s Family Subsidy Rules to Help Ensure Affordability
<p>Partly to contain costs, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) encourages workers with access to employer-provided coverage to retain that coverage by restricting their eligibility for marketplace subsidies.</p><p>In a blog post in a series analyzing proposals to change provisions of the ACA, RAND’s Amado Cordova, Sarah Nowak, and Evan Saltzman explain that a family is ineligible for marketplace subsidies if at least one member has access to affordable employer-provided insurance—defined as a plan in which the contribution for a single premium is less than 9.56 percent of household income. In contrast, families that are eligible for subsidies in the marketplaces pay no more than 9.56 percent of their income for a <em>family </em>premium, if they enroll in benchmark coverage.</p>
<p>Cordova and colleagues estimate the impact of a modification proposed by Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota that would allow dependents to receive subsidies—but not the worker—when the family employer premium contribution exceeds the income threshold.</p>