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University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Tag: Health care subsidies

ACA Health Insurance Subsidies

Trump to end key ACA subsidies, a move that will threaten the law’s marketplaces, By Amy Goldstein and Juliet Eilperin, October 13, 2017, Washington Post: “President Trump is throwing a bomb into the insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act, choosing to end critical payments to health insurers that help millions of lower-income Americans afford coverage. The decision coincides with an executive order on Thursday to allow alternative health plans that skirt the law’s requirements…”

Health Insurance and Low-Income Employees

Many low-income workers say ‘no’ to health insurance, By Stacy Cowley, October 19, 2015, New York Times: “When Billy Sewell began offering health insurance this year to 600 service workers at the Golden Corral restaurants that he owns, he wondered nervously how many would buy it. Adding hundreds of employees to his plan would cost him more than $1 million — a hit he wasn’t sure his low-margin business could afford. His actual costs, though, turned out to be far smaller than he had feared. So far, only two people have signed up. ‘We offered, and they didn’t take it,’ he said.  Evidence is growing that his experience is not unusual…”

ACA and Safety-Net Hospitals

Cuts in hospital subsidies threaten safety-net care, By Sabrina Tavernise, November 8, 2013, New York Times: “The uninsured pour into Memorial Health hospital here: the waitress with cancer in her voice box who for two years assumed she just had a sore throat. The unemployed diabetic with a wound stretching the length of her shin. The construction worker who could no longer breathe on his own after weeks of untreated asthma attacks and had to be put on a respirator. Many of these patients were expected to gain health coverage under the Affordable Care Act through a major expansion of Medicaid, the medical insurance program for the poor. But after the Supreme Court in 2012 gave states the right to opt out, Georgia, like about half the states, almost all of them Republican-led, refused to broaden the program…”