A new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows that expanding Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies is poor public policy. CBO projects that expanding ACA spending, which includes increased premium subsidies for exchange plans as well as a new federal Medicaid program, would cost $553.2 billion over the next decade. The main economic effect is crowd out: Most of this new government spending would replace private spending that would otherwise have occurred to purchase health insurance.
CBO projects that the entire net coverage gains would occur through Medicaid as private coverage would slightly decline over the next decade. CBO projects that 4.0 million people would gain Medicaid, 3.6 million people would gain subsidized individual market coverage, 1.0 million people would lose unsubsidized individual market coverage, and 2.8 million people would lose employer coverage.
For the full-text article, visit Forbes.