Impact of Affordable Care Act:
Health Care Costs Down
Posted October 27, 2014 08:35 am
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TALLAHASSEE, FL– Not long ago, the airwaves were filled with predictions health-care reform would be a disaster for taxpayers and consumers. That hasn't happened.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), often referred to as "Obamacare," will cut the federal budget deficit by a $100 billion. That despite adding health coverage for about 10 million people, by federal estimates.
Paul Van de Water, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says the reform has been able to do this because it's had real success at one of its key goals: holding down the cost of health care.
Link:
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
"The growth of health-care costs has been at close to historic lows, both in the public programs, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as the private sector," says Van de Water.
Some critics still argue health-care reform will be a disaster, but that position is not getting a lot of support from the data. Other critics have simply fallen silent. Up until now Florida has opted out of billions in federal funding to extend Medicaid to another 850,000 low-income Floridians, but one million of the state's residents signed up for a health plan through the ACA.
The overall federal deficit has dropped dramatically. It's now projected to total nearly $5 trillion less by 2020 than was expected just four years ago. More importantly, Van de Water says the ACA is improving the health of the vital Medicare program, which is threatened by an influx of millions of baby boomers.
"Medicare will continue to need adjustments, but it's clear health reform has made Medicare's prospects better, not worse," he says.
Another prediction that hasn't come true yet is premiums would skyrocket. Van de Water says the huge variation in the cost of insurance makes it difficult to describe a simple pattern. But he says it looks like slowing the rise in health-care costs has helped keep the price of premiums in line, especially in the new insurance exchanges.
"Premiums in the health-insurance exchanges have turned out to be lower than what the congressional office was originally projecting," Van de Water says. "Now premiums are still going up, but it's likely they're going up by less than what would have otherwise been the case."
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