I spent my last post peering over the edge at various points of the Affordable Care Act's subsidy cliff -- the income cutoff beyond which shoppers for health insurance are ineligible for subsidies. I was prompted by a New York Times article spotlighting who stand to lose most by this cutoff: middle aged and older, with incomes just over the line. In brief: if you're 27 and single, premium subsidies fade out gradually. If you earn one dollar more than the subsidizable limit, it may cost you $100 per year. If you're 55 and looking to cover a family of four, however, that extra dollar may cost you almost $9000 in subsidies.
While I had a couple of quibbles with the Times article, I thought it was fair. The subsidy cliff is a real design flaw. A pair of 55 year-olds covering a 23 year-old son or daughter in New Jersey with an income of $79k shouldn't have to pay $1300/month for rather crappy insurance, which is what they would pay in Essex County, NJ.
I was somewhat taken aback, then, to discover that the fiery Dean Baker and the more mild-mannered Jared Bernstein both took rather furious issue with the Times article (by Katie Thomas, Reed Abelson, and Jo Craven McGinty). Baker's rhetoric is harsher than Bernstein's, but I think he does have a point. Bernstein's rebuttal strikes me as more of a reflex partisan pushback.* Take his opening salvo:
While I had a couple of quibbles with the Times article, I thought it was fair. The subsidy cliff is a real design flaw. A pair of 55 year-olds covering a 23 year-old son or daughter in New Jersey with an income of $79k shouldn't have to pay $1300/month for rather crappy insurance, which is what they would pay in Essex County, NJ.
I was somewhat taken aback, then, to discover that the fiery Dean Baker and the more mild-mannered Jared Bernstein both took rather furious issue with the Times article (by Katie Thomas, Reed Abelson, and Jo Craven McGinty). Baker's rhetoric is harsher than Bernstein's, but I think he does have a point. Bernstein's rebuttal strikes me as more of a reflex partisan pushback.* Take his opening salvo:
