Since 2014, when the Health Insurance Marketplaces (HIMs) authorized by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) were implemented, considerable premium changes have been observed in the marketplaces across the 50 states and the District of Columbia. This policy brief assesses the changes in average HIM plan premiums from 2014 to 2016, before accounting for subsidies, with an emphasi...

This paper makes an analysis of subsidies in Chile’s public utilities. Rates rebalancing have practically eliminated cross subsidies, and current programs are funded from the national budget. Over the last decade in particular, significant efforts have been made to extend public services to rural populations, and a consumption subsidy for potable water currently benefits 17% of the population. ...

The Medicare drug benefit (Medicare "Part D"), provides federal subsidies to pay premiums and cost sharing for low-income beneficiaries--almost 10 million in 2009. Yet there are several policy issues concerning these low-income beneficiaries under Part D. First, over 2 million individuals who may qualify for the subsidies have not enrolled. Second, in some states, low-income beneficiaries have ...

There are few countries where the state and the policy and intellectual community have been as committed to poverty eradication—both in terms of rhetoric and through a range of subsidies and an array of targeted poverty reduction programs—as India. In 2006–07, there were at least 151 centrally sponsored schemes (CSS), entailing annual expenditures of about Rs.72,000 crore. Of this, about Rs.64,...

In calling for a switch of fossil fuel subsidies to funding of universal health coverage, Vinay Gupta and colleagues (June, 2015) miss two health-relevant issues: all fossil fuels are not the same and all subsidies are not the same. Liquefi ed petroleum gas (LPG) has major, direct health advantages in household cooking in countries of low and middle income, its primary use. Indeed, the Global B...

If tax credits or other public subsidies are made available only for health insurance that is not employment-based, serious erosion of employer coverage could result. To prevent this, public subsidies targeted to low-income workers and families could be applied in ways that broaden employer coverage for low-income workers and their families by encouraging small employers with largely low-wage w...

The Employment Effects of Low-Wage Subsidies Low-wage subsidies are often proposed as a solution to the unemployment problem among the low skilled. Yet the empirical evidence on the effects of low-wage subsidies is surprisingly scarce. This paper examines the employment effects of a Finnish payroll tax subsidy scheme, which is targeted at the employers of older, full-time, low-wage workers. The...