ACA Health Insurance Subsidies Will Account For 53 Percent Of Growth In US Government Healthcare Spending By 2023 And Cost $1.4 Trillion from 2014 To 2023: CBO

From CBO, "Presentation on Federal Health Care Spending" to the Public Policy Initiative of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania by CBO Director Doug Elmendorf:

Federal health care spending is growing because of a combination of the aging of the population, an expansion of federal subsidies for health insurance, and rising health care costs per person. Since a central goal of policies regarding health and health care is to help people live longer, the more successful our policies are, the more population aging we will have. Hence, efforts to reduce federal health care spending need to be directed at the other two factors pushing up spending.

Reducing the number of people eligible for federal health care subsidies or the size of those subsidies would be a straightforward way to reduce federal spending. CBO has examined some potential reductions in federal subsidies, including repeal of the coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act, the elimination of subsidies through that act for people with income above a certain threshold, an increase in the Medicare eligibility age, and an increase in Medicare premiums. Changes of those sorts would reduce federal spending but also would cause the affected people to bear higher costs, to lose health insurance in some cases, and to receive less health care in some cases. Also, the additional uncompensated care that would result would impose burdens on the medical safety net. [Emphasis Added.]

Slides accompanying the above presentation:

Federal Health Care Spending:Why Is It Growing? What Could Be Done About It? from Congressional Budget Office

Slide 6

Source: CBO

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Source: CBO

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Source: CBO