Assessing the true impact of the ACA: revisiting the CBO's initial predictions.

Abstract

In Obamacare’s Impact on Labor Markets: Limits on the Predictive Value of Romneycare, Josh Archambault makes a number of arguments about the ultimate impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). A central point is that the overall impact on the US labor market and economy will be worse than the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected—to some extent, because the CBO used the experience in Massachusetts as one piece of evidence in guiding its estimates. A recent report by the CBO on potential effects of the ACA on employment has added additional fuel to the debate. In particular, Archambault argues that more people will leave employer-sponsored insurance (ESI), and that the ACA will cost more than the CBO projected.Archambault makes many good points. The ACA does add new taxes, such as an additional 1% Medicare tax on families earning over $250,000, a 2.3% tax on medical devices, and additional taxes on some health insurers and tanning salons. Altogether, these taxes were expected to raise roughly $400 billion between 2010 and 2019.