Affordable Care Act

The Affordable Care Act is a 2010 United States law that expanded health insurance coverage and regulated private insurance markets.

Health insurance marketplace: A platform where individuals and small businesses can compare and enroll in private health insurance plans. The law established marketplaces for people buying coverage outside employer-sponsored insurance.
Uninsured rate in the United States: The share of the U.S. population without health insurance. The law’s coverage expansions were followed by a substantial decline in the uninsured rate.
Massachusetts health care reform: A 2006 Massachusetts law expanding insurance coverage through subsidies, regulated plans, and an individual coverage requirement. Its policy design influenced the national reform debate that preceded the ACA.
Single-payer healthcare: A health system in which one public payer finances essential care for a population. The ACA expanded coverage mainly through private insurance and existing public programs, not one public payer.
Affordable Care Act litigation: Legal challenges contesting the constitutionality, interpretation, or implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Court cases continue to shape the law’s provisions and their reach.
Premium tax credit: A refundable federal tax credit that lowers eligible households’ premiums for health insurance purchased through a marketplace. Income-based premium credits make marketplace plans more affordable under the law.
Medicaid: A joint federal-state program providing health coverage to eligible low-income people in the United States. Medicaid became a major route for the law’s coverage expansion.
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: The formal statutory name of the federal law commonly called the Affordable Care Act. This is the statute’s enacted title and legal identity.
Public option: A government-run health insurance plan offered alongside private plans. The enacted ACA did not create the federal public option debated during its passage.
ACA preventive care coverage litigation: Legal disputes over the ACA requirement that many plans cover specified preventive services without cost sharing. Challenges have tested how the law determines which preventive services receive this protection.

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