Exam 17: Economic Evaluation of Health Policy: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010

Why does the law allow for a significant variety in the types of "qualified" plans that can be offered by health insurance exchanges? Wouldn't it be less expensive for the states (in terms of administrative costs) to offer just one standard plan of essential benefits to everyone?

Under PPACA, each state is required to establish a single statewide health benefit exchange for individuals and small employers by January 2014.

The market that will be most radically transformed under the PPACA is the market for employer-sponsored health insurance.

When state health insurance exchanges become effective in 2014, low-income individuals will qualify for premium credits and/or subsidies, where the amount of credit or subsidy will be determined individually for each person and depend solely on his or her income. Consider the following example: to obtain health insurance coverage effective throughout the year 2015, an individual would be shopping for it in the year 2014, which means he or she will be providing their tax returns for the year 2013 as an evidence of income level. Do you see any potential problems arising from such a significant time lag between the date of income evidence and the dates of effective coverage? Should the most recent tax returns be the only acceptable proof of income, to qualify for premiums credits?

For the federal government, the major problem with macro affordability is that the healthcare expenditures growth rate greatly exceeds the growth rate in the available income (GDP). This implies that if the current growth trends continue without change, spending on healthcare will become unsustainable.

When analyzing legislative documents, such as the PPACA, it is important to rely on the original text of the document, not on secondary sources (e.g. summaries and overviews by parties with different political affiliations) to form your own independent opinion first.

Listed below are some of the most important new coverage rules under PPACA. Some of them aim to achieve greater efficiency, others aim to achieve greater equity. Which coverage rule from the list below aims to achieve better equity?

Is there an inconsistency in the following figures: healthcare costs comprise about 18% of the national income, however, the PPACA legislation sets the limit for individuals' spending on health insurance premiums as 9.5% of their incomes, with government credits covering the remainder. Where would the rest of the financing come from? Discuss.

The anticipated benefits of health insurance exchanges include all of the following except

What is the most important takeaway from Dr.Getzen's analysis of the PPACA legislation?