The Covid relief legislation making its way through Congress would vastly increase premium subsidies in the ACA marketplace for two years but would not touch out-of-pocket costs. Premium subsidies would still be set against a silver benchmark -- that is, designed to make the second-cheapest silver plan "affordable." At incomes over 250% FPL, silver plans have deductibles averaging $4816.
In Health Affairs, David Anderson and I have a post positing that the Biden administration can complement the subsidy boosts by requiring insurers to price gold plans below silver plans. That is, by requiring full "silver loading."
