(Opens in a new tab) the most important piece of legislation since Medicare and Medicaid. Since 2010, The ACA has given more than 40 million Americans access to health care, expanded Medicaid to 40 states to cover 21 million low-income adults under 65, and protected as many as 133 million
(Opens in a new tab) with pre-existing conditions from losing their health insurance.
As proud as he is of the ACA, President Obama never intended for the law to remain as is. During a speech
(Opens in a new tab) in the final months of his presidency, he called the ACA, “a first step” and compared it to “buying a starter home….you hope that over time you make some improvements.”
In the past year alone, the Affordable Care Act has been expanded at the federal and state levels, allowing for more Americans to access quality healthcare without worrying about going bankrupt. To mark the anniversary we took a look back at how the law has evolved over the past year, and a new report that shows how the ACA is continuing to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in care.
For families living in or near the poverty threshold, the ACA’s premium subsidies make quality care more affordable by reducing the cost of health insurance based on family size and household income. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act has extended these premium subsidies to 2025, keeping out-of-pocket premium costs from rising for the nearly 13 million
(Opens in a new tab) Americans who benefit from them.
Last April, President Obama appeared with President Biden at the White House to talk about the “family glitch” that made health care more expensive for many people families with children. In the fall, the Internal Revenue Service updated their interpretation of an administrative rule in the Affordable Care Act. Since 2013, the rule had based a family’s eligibility for premium subsidies on whether employer-sponsored insurance was affordable for just the employee, without factoring in costs for the whole family.
According to a KFF estimate, 5.1 million Americans, primarily children, fell into this regulatory loophole meaning they were either uninsured or their families were paying more than they could afford.
