Amid the hot debate over the proposed Alexander-Murray bill to repair Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act marketplaces, Drew Altman of the
Kaiser Family Foundation throws in a word of caution: The bill is a narrowly focused effort that aims to fix a problem only affecting relatively few Americans. The reality check is necessary, he believes, because a recent KFF poll indicates that some people have the wrong idea about who's affected by changes in ACA plans.
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Kaiser Family Foundation chart; click on it to enlarge. |
"Many people will think it affects their insurance when, in actuality, it
will have no impact on the vast majority of Americans who get their
coverage outside of the relatively small ACA marketplaces," Altman
reports. Because of that mistaken impression, "The public will be susceptible to spin and misrepresentation against the
limited goals of Alexander-Murray: a bipartisan effort to stabilize the
marketplaces by funding the cost-sharing reduction subsidies, providing
more resources for open enrollment outreach, and expediting state
waivers."
It should be noted that, though changes to the ACA marketplace plans won't affect most Americans, those it does affect will be disproportionately rural. It may end up
hurting Republicans more too, since nearly 70 percent of the people who receive the cost-sharing subsidies live in red states.
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