Helping poor people get health insurance works better than helping richer people

A new study measured how well the Affordable Care Act helped people get health insurance. It turns out, subsidies for low-income people worked very well, but subsidies for higher-income people often just replaced their existing private plans.

Governments have spent years debating how to best get health insurance to more people. This study shows that giving public insurance to the poorest people directly reduces the number of uninsured. Giving subsidies to people who already have some income often just shifts them from private plans to public ones, without adding many new insured people.