The Affordable Care Act will insure fewer people and cost $51 billion less over 10 years than was projected last March, the Congressional Budget Office announced Tuesday in a revised estimate.
As of 2016, the law’s insurane exchanges are expected to insure 2 million fewer people overall than had been estimated. The ACA is poised to raise Medicaid and CHIP enrollment while decreasing coverage by more in other areas like employer-sponsored insurance, CBO said.
Here’s an excerpt from the CBO report highlighting the budgetary changes to 2012-2021 projections, which it attributes to new legislation, adjustments in the economic outlook and updated forecasts regarding insurance premium growth.
An increase of $168 billion in projected outlays for Medicaid and CHIP;
A decrease of $97 billion in projected costs for exchange subsidies and related spending;
A decrease of $20 billion in the cost of tax credits for small employers; and
An additional $99 billion in net deficit reductions from penalty payments, the excise tax on high-premium insurance plans, and other effects on tax revenues and outlays—with most of those effects reflecting changes in revenues.
