4 ms·
I kinda hesitate to link here, it seems like a pretty non-authoritative site, but it does point out that this law did a bad job of that standard gradation [1].
by toufka 13y ago
I kinda hesitate to link here, it seems like a pretty non-authoritative site, but it does point out that this law did a bad job of that standard gradation [1]. They wrote in 'cliffs'. Justified in the article ridiculously:
>To avoid creating such steep cliffs, federal officials would have had to spend more money on the subsidies, said Larry Levitt, an executive with the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group that is closely following the health care law. Subsidies would have been higher, and could have been more gradually phased out, he said. The design “was largely driven by budgetary decisions,” Mr. Levitt said.
[1] http://obamacarecliff.com/Index.html http://obamacarecliff.com/Index.html
- hga 13y agoDon't know about the site, but the Kaiser Family Foundation has been one of the best and most solid sources of info on Obamacare. E.g. see their subsidies calculator: http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/ http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/
- toufka 13y agoDefinitely a much better resource. Kinda weird - I really didn't know how to find such a resource. After the weird link above, I actually spent a good bit of effort digging around. It's not easy. And as others noted as well, it looks like there is a fair bit of a slope to the phase-out of the subsidies, and not an (obvious) cliff.
- hga 13y agoI wonder if there may be a perception cliff: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6947928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6947928
- sxp 13y agoUsing the Kaiser calculator linked on that site, it looks like the subsidies are properly phased out. Increasing my income causes the subside to gradually go down and I don't see any major inversion in that calculator. There might be some slight inversion when accounting for the marginal state & federal tax brackets, but the calculator doesn't support the math for those cases.
- hsitz 13y agoI went to site you link and see it purports to use the Berkeley calculator to calculate the "cliff" amounts. When I put numbers into Berkeley calculator (http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/healthpolicy/calculator/ http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/healthpolicy/calculator/ ) I see values that are similar to those I got from Kaiser calculator (in post I made in this same subthread). The way data is presented in your linked article seems intended to be misleading. E.g., they talk about raw dollar amounts, not percentages. I don't know whether there is some case in which the dollar amounts could come out to those in their charts, but if there is it's not for the usual "silver" policy. Maybe the percentage subsidy for a whacky expensive gold policy could get you to those dollar values for the cliff, but I doubt even that.