What Happens If the ACA's Tax Credits Are Replaced with Premium Support?

commentary

Nov 24, 2015

An elderly person's hands on a doctor's desk next to a stethoscope

Photo by Barabas Attila/Fotolia

This commentary originally appeared on The Commonwealth Fund Blog on November 24, 2015.

Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), tax credits for purchasing health insurance in the marketplaces are designed to limit enrollees' premium contributions to a fixed percentage of their income. Critics who want to repeal and replace the law have advanced a “premium-support” model, in which tax credits are fixed amounts for enrollees regardless of their premium costs. We have conducted an analysis that indicates that these premium-support models could place financial burdens on low-income and older individuals....

The remainder of this commentary is available on commonwealthfund.org.


Evan Saltzman is a project associate at the RAND Corporation. Christine Eibner is a senior economist at RAND and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.