The Affordable Care Act’s cost-sharing reductions, available to low- to moderate-income people in silver-tier marketplace plans, substantially lower deductibles, out-of-pocket spending limits, and copayments for a range of key health services, a new Commonwealth Fund brief by Sara R. Collins, Munira Gunja, and Sophie Beutel finds. But because the amount by which they are reduced depends on the way individual plans are designed, consumers’ out-of-pocket spending will vary from plan to plan. View or download the exhibits in ChartCart.
Also, in a new post on the Wall Street Journal’s ThinkTank blog, The Commonwealth Fund’s David Blumenthal, M.D., and Sara Collins discuss House v. Burwell, a lawsuit moving through the federal courts that threatens the ACA’s cost-sharing reductions. The lawsuit claims the Obama administration does not have authority to compensate insurers for revenues they lose by providing these discounts to consumers.