Comments on Rule Proposed by the Internal Revenue Service on Affordability of Employer Coverage for Family Members of Employees
Comment submitted to the Internal Revenue Service on proposed regulation that would address the ACA “Family Glitch.”
The Labor Center’s health care research aims to inform federal, state, and local policymaking to improve access to health coverage and make health care more affordable for workers and their families. Our research especially examines policy impacts for California low-income and immigrant working families and communities of color. Many of our publications include projections from the California Simulation of Insurance Markets (CalSIM) model, jointly developed with the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
Our factsheet for calculating Modified Adjusted Gross Income under the Affordable Care Act is available here.
Who is and isn’t insured, coverage affordability, job-based health coverage, the ACA, Covered CA, and Medi-Cal.
Affordability of coverage and care, underlying cost trends, and solutions.
Access to health coverage for immigrant families, undocumented Californians, and those with DACA.
California Simulation of Insurance Markets model projections, reports, and methodology.
Comment submitted to the Internal Revenue Service on proposed regulation that would address the ACA “Family Glitch.”
Proposed federal regulations would fix the family glitch by extending subsidies to spouses and children offered unaffordable family coverage through an employer. The employee would still be excluded from subsidies if their cost for single coverage through their employer was affordable. We use the California Simulations of Insurance Markets (CalSIM) model to project for 2023 how many people would fall into the family glitch in California, how many would be newly eligible for a positive dollar subsidy, and how many would enroll in Covered California with subsidies under the family glitch fix.
The Medi-Cal redetermination process has been paused during the COVID public health emergency. As a result, many more individuals have newly enrolled in Medi-Cal than disenrolled, increasing Medi-Cal enrollment by almost 2 million since the beginning of the pandemic. This blog post summarizes (1) the available estimates of the potential reduction in Medi-Cal enrollment once the PHE is unwound and redeterminations have been completed, and (2) the likely eligibility for and enrollment in private coverage among those losing Medi-Cal.
California has the opportunity to expand Medi-Cal to all low-income Californians, regardless of immigration status or age. This policy would result in a massive increase in coverage, bringing close to 700,000 undocumented Californians into coverage and reducing the uninsured rate for residents under 65 to just 7.1%, the biggest single improvement since implementation of the ACA.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress enacted the American Rescue Plan of 2021 to provide additional temporary financial help for buying health insurance through the ACA Marketplaces. If these enhanced subsidies are not extended for 2023 and beyond, we project 220,000 fewer Californians would have individual market insurance in 2023 than if enhanced subsidies are extended, and premiums would be less affordable for more than two million individual market enrollees.
May 2, 2022
This proposal could solve health insurance problem for part-time community college faculty
April 28, 2022
How will Californians’ health coverage sources change when the public health emergency ends?
April 14, 2022
California’s biggest coverage expansion since the ACA: Extending Medi-Cal to all low-income adults
April 14, 2022
The Threat to Coverage and Affordability Gains in Covered California if Congress Fails to Renew Subsidy Enhancements
February 4, 2022
A Landmark Bill Would Outlaw Bosses Cutting off Healthcare to Striking Workers
Undocumented residents remain the largest group of uninsured in California, according to a recent analysis from the the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California, Berkeley.
Without any action, approximately 220,000 residents would lose health insurance under the state’s individual marketplace, according to the Berkeley Labor Center.
If the state pours more money into part-time faculty health plans, “unions and the districts may negotiate to improve the benefits currently offered,” said Laurel Lucia. Colleges that already offer health plans to part-time faculty “might reduce the premium amount that the worker is required to pay or they might reduce the amount that people have to pay out of pocket to access care.”
If Gov. Gavin Newsom gets his way, California could allow all remaining low-income unauthorized immigrants — an estimated 700,000 people — to join Medi-Cal by 2024, or sooner.
Gov. Newsom’s proposed budget has proposed providing the final missing piece and the largest group remaining: all low-income adults ages 26 to 49, regardless of immigration status. That move would represent the state’s biggest coverage expansion since the Affordable Care Act’s implementation, and comprises about 670,000 people, Lucia said.
Laurel Lucia
Director, Health Care Program
Ken Jacobs
Labor Center Chair
Miranda Dietz
Research and Policy Associate
Tynan Challenor
Research and Policy Assistant