With the beginning of the annual Affordable Care Act (ACA) open enrollment period this week, we take a look back at the ACA’s performance over the last decade. In a new insight, Health Care Policy Fellow Margaret Barnhorst uses annual enrollment and cost data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Congressional Budget Office to compare the ACA’s actual results to original estimates. Barnhorst notes that annual enrollment has been significantly below projection throughout the decade. She further notes that while total costs were lower than expected due to lower-than-expected enrollment, costs per enrollee have been significantly higher than expected.  

Read the analysis