
Thoughts on the Growing Cost of Employer Insurance for Middle Income Families

Plug into Reform
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the U.S. Department of the Treasury recently released guidance granting states more flexibility to design alternatives to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by reinterpreting existing waiver provisions under the law.
The District of Columbia recently took an important step to protect health insurance coverage by creating a District-specific health insurance requirement. This is in response to the unexpected termination of the federal health insurance requirement, which Congress narrowly passed last December. The Affordable Care Act had required that federal taxpayers, except some with low incomes, to have health insurance or pay a federal income tax penalty. The underlying logic was that this would incentivize more people to get coverage and prevent insurance premiums from rising for the great majori