Affordable Care Act

As the House-passed Build Back Better Act moves to the Senate, a new explainer from KFF summarizes the key prescription drug provisions within the broader budget reconciliation bill. These provisions would lower prescription drug costs paid by people with Medicare and private insurance and curb drug spending by the federal…

A summary of 10 of the major health coverage and financing provisions of the current Build Back Better Act, with discussion of the potential implications for people and the federal budget.

Recent policy attention has focused on efforts to reduce the number of uninsured people in the U.S. by expanding eligibility for coverage assistance, including enhanced premium subsidies in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace and filling the Medicaid “coverage gap.” A new KFF analysis shows that a majority of the…

This brief examines characteristics of uninsured children in 2020 and discusses how current policy proposals, including outreach efforts, continuous eligibility requirements, and closing the coverage gap, could affect children’s health coverage. Recent efforts to expand coverage for adults could benefit children’s coverage, especially for children in non-expansion states if the coverage gap is filled as proposed by the Build Back Better Act (BBBA).

As the ninth open enrollment period for the Health Insurance Marketplaces begins, enhanced Marketplace premium help along with increased funding for outreach and enrollment assistance mean there are more affordable coverage options for the millions of people who remain uninsured and more help available to connect those individuals to coverage.

Over the 10-year lifetime of a Medicare program aimed at reducing hospital readmissions, 93% of eligible hospitals have been penalized at least once. Hospital readmissions have become less frequent, and most experts attribute that partly to the financial threat of the penalties, though other factors likely contributed to the improvements.

Even as the ninth annual Open Enrollment period gets underway, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplaces continue to evolve and important changes are expected. This issue brief discusses what changes to watch out for in the coming enrollment period.

Many people who come to the Affordable Care Act marketplaces for the 2022 open enrollment period, which begins Nov. 1, may be learning for the first time about new financial assistance available to them.

The October KFF Health Tracking Poll explores experiences with unpaid caregiving, and favorability of expansion of home and community based services (HCBS). It also examines experiences with difficulty affording and putting of health care services among seniors, favorability of the ACA and experience with determining eligibility for lower cost insurance as part of the COVID relief package.

In this column for the JAMA Health Forum, Larry Levitt explores why the Medicaid “coverage gap” still exists in 12 states that have not expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act, why it matters, and why eliminating it could prove challenging.