A month ago, the Kaiser Family Foundation's annual survey of enrollees in the individual market for health insurance recorded a marked decline in enrollees' satisfaction, closely correlated with a sharp rise in the percentage of enrollees in high-deductible plans.
As I noted at the time, part of the decline in satisfaction and rise in reported high deductibles was attributable to a change in respondents' income distribution. In 2016, a smaller percentage of respondents had incomes below 250% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), which is the eligibility cutoff for Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) subsidies in the ACA marketplace. Most of that drop was concentrated among those with incomes below 138% FPL, as we'll see below.
Recently, Brian Blase of the Mercatus Center framed the deterioration in coverage and satisfaction reflected in the Kaiser survey in stark visual terms. That sent me back to look more closely at the shift in the income distribution of Kaiser respondents, with the help of some details about the income distribution kindly provided by the Kaiser researchers. Here, first, is the Mercatus graphic:
As I noted at the time, part of the decline in satisfaction and rise in reported high deductibles was attributable to a change in respondents' income distribution. In 2016, a smaller percentage of respondents had incomes below 250% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), which is the eligibility cutoff for Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) subsidies in the ACA marketplace. Most of that drop was concentrated among those with incomes below 138% FPL, as we'll see below.
Recently, Brian Blase of the Mercatus Center framed the deterioration in coverage and satisfaction reflected in the Kaiser survey in stark visual terms. That sent me back to look more closely at the shift in the income distribution of Kaiser respondents, with the help of some details about the income distribution kindly provided by the Kaiser researchers. Here, first, is the Mercatus graphic:
