Learn About the Health Insurance Affordability Act (Enterprise)
The Health Insurance Affordability Act (Health Insurance Affordability Enterprise) would:
- Continue Colorado’s successful reinsurance program that reduced and keeps premiums lower
- Make insurance more affordable for individual-market consumers that don’t benefit from reinsurance, namely lower income Coloradans that receive federal subsidies under the ACA
- Create affordable health insurance options for people left out of the Affordable Care Act, including individuals in the “family glitch.”
This will help about 250,000 Coloradans who purchase coverage on the individual market because it funds the reinsurance program. This plan will also provide increased purchasing power for tens of thousands of Coloradans who receive tax credits to help with the cost of their insurance coverage on the Exchange, but for whom coverage remains expensive and often carries high deductibles. In addition, it will further expand coverage to thousands of Coloradans who have been left out of the Affordable Care Act including people in the “family glitch,” which ties what is considered affordable employer coverage to the cost of the employee, rather than factoring in the much higher cost of covering the entire family. Finally, some Coloradans who provide vital services for our communities but lack proper documentation could also be helped. COVID-19 has shown all of us that our health depends on the ability of everyone to access quality health care.
This can all be done without negatively impacting the state budget by re-purposing a federal fee that will no longer exist after 2020, and collecting it to create more affordable health insurance for Coloradans.
