The Congressional Budget Office and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation have updated their estimates of the budgetary effects of major Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provisions that concern health insurance.
The CBO and JCT project those provisions will cost the federal government $1.2 trillion from 2016 through 2025, which is an 11 percent decrease from the estimation the agencies provided in January.
The drop in projections is due to a downward revision in the estimation of cost increases of health insurance premiums, which led to a lower estimate of the costs of subsidizing health insurance through the exchanges.
The agencies project the exchange subsidies will cost the government $849 billion from 2016 through 2025, which is 20 percent lower than their previous projection.
The drop in the projections was also based on an updated and slightly lower estimation of the number of people who will gain insurance under the PPACA.
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