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Health Insurance Mandates

Commentary

Understanding the Impact of the Elimination of the Individual Mandate Penalty

Starting in 2019, the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate penalty will be eliminated, effectively ending the law's requirement that most people have health insurance. While declines in coverage and increases in premiums are likely, the magnitudes of these effects are highly uncertain.

Aug 10, 2018
Commentary

Four Steps That Could Stabilize the Health Insurance Market

Congress will soon discuss options to stabilize the individual market and ensure that all Americans have access to affordable coverage. Policymakers could encourage enrollment, make targeted investments to lower premiums, fund cost-sharing reductions, and enforce the individual mandate.

Aug 25, 2017
Multimedia

Drama over Health Care Continues

In this Call with the Experts, RAND senior economist Christine Eibner discusses the Affordable Care Act, what policymakers should consider, and changes that the current administration could make.

Apr 11, 2017
Commentary

Repeal-and-Delay Would Make Budget Neutrality for ACA Replacement Difficult

As Congress considers repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, it will need to consider how federal budget scoring can affect the fate of legislation. Depending on the ultimate cost of a replacement, finding enough savings to offset costs while maintaining budget neutrality could make it hard to pass a replacement.

Jan 11, 2017
Commentary

Can a Continuous Coverage Requirement Produce a Healthy Insurance Market?

A continuous coverage requirement aims to discourage individuals from waiting until they become sick to buy insurance. This works well in theory. But there is little evidence on how it might work in practice.

Jan 4, 2017
Commentary

Modifying the ACA's Family Subsidy Rules to Help Ensure Affordability

The ACA encourages workers to retain employer coverage by restricting their eligibility for marketplace subsidies. Modifying the policy could help 700,000 people gain coverage and lower spending for 1.6 million who are insured but face high health care costs.

Jan 12, 2016
Commentary

The Ramifications of Repealing the Individual Mandate

As part of its goal of near-universal coverage, the Affordable Care Act requires most Americans to obtain insurance or pay a penalty. Repealing that requirement would significantly reduce health insurance enrollment and cause individual market premiums to rise.

Aug 13, 2015
Blog

Five Years of the Affordable Care Act

The Affordable Care Act has officially been part of the U.S. health care landscape for five years. We reflect on the twists and turns that followed its passage and the RAND research that informed debates along the way, and look ahead to the future of the ACA.

Mar 23, 2015
News Release

Eliminating Subsidies for People to Buy Health Coverage Would Increase Premiums and Number of Uninsured

Eliminating subsidies that help low- and moderate-income people purchase coverage through government-run health insurance marketplaces would sharply boost costs for consumers as much as 43 percent and cause more than 11 million Americans to lose their health insurance.

Oct 21, 2014
Commentary

Checking the ACA's Vital Signs

Despite pervasive challenges associated with the rollout of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the administration remains optimistic about its fate. Critics, however, have seized upon the recent mishaps as evidence of the ACA's inevitable demise.

Mar 17, 2014
Commentary

Employer Mandate Delay II: Nothing to See Here

Amid mounting political pressure and angst in the business community, the Obama administration announced an additional delay in enforcing the employer mandate component of the Affordable Care Act for some firms until 2016. The additional delay will have little impact.

Mar 3, 2014
News Release

Plans Allowing People to Keep Health Insurance Will Not Threaten New Insurance Marketplaces

Although three options put forward to help people keep their old health insurance plans all would cause some disruption of the risk pools that are important to the insurance exchanges, none of the changes would be severe enough to threaten their viability.

Jan 21, 2014
Commentary

Four Questions on Canceled Insurance Policy Fix

David Mastio, Forum editor at USA TODAY, asked RAND's Christine Eibner four questions about President Obama's plan to fix the problem with people getting their insurance canceled.

Nov 15, 2013
Commentary

Data Points: Why Delay of the Employer Mandate May Not Actually Mean That Much

The bottom line is that the employer mandate does not provide a large inducement for firms to change their health insurance offerings, but it does raise a substantial amount of money to pay for the ACA's coverage provisions over time.

Aug 29, 2013
News Release

Delay of Employer Insurance Mandate Will Not Cause Major Problems for Affordable Care Act

A one-year delay in requiring large employers to provide health insurance to their workers will not significantly hurt the goals of the Affordable Care Act, but a repeal of the requirement would seriously undermine financial support for the law.

Aug 19, 2013
News Release

Expanding Medicaid Is Best Financial Option for States

States that choose not to expand Medicaid under federal health care reform will leave millions of their residents without health insurance and increase spending on the cost of treating uninsured residents, at least in the short term.

Jun 3, 2013
Commentary

Governors Missing the Point on Medicaid

While a governor or legislator may disagree with Medicaid expansion for philosophical reasons, the claims that the expansion will be a burden on states' economies seem misguided given the full range of projected economic impacts on the states, writes Carter C. Price.

Apr 29, 2013
Commentary

What Happens Without the Individual Mandate?

If the individual mandate were ruled unconstitutional, subsidies and the age structure of premiums should keep enough healthy people in the insurance exchanges to prevent huge spikes in premiums, write Carter C. Price and Christine Eibner.

Mar 21, 2012
Multimedia

What Would Removing the Individual Mandate from the ACA Mean For Costs and Coverage?

New RAND research finds that eliminating the requirement that all Americans have health insurance would sharply lower the number of people gaining coverage, but would not dramatically increase the cost of buying policies through new insurance exchanges. RAND Economist Christine Eibner discusses the ramifications.

Feb 16, 2012
News Release

Ending Individual Mandate Would Cut Health Coverage, but Not Dramatically Hike Insurance Price

Eliminating a key part of health care reform that requires all Americans to have health insurance would sharply lower the number of people gaining coverage, but would not dramatically increase the cost of buying policies through new insurance exchanges.

Feb 16, 2012

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