TY - BOOK ID - 134765453 TI - Increasing Subsidies and Expanding Health Insurance Options in Connecticut AU - Rao, Preethi AU - Baker, Lawrence AU - Eibner, Christine AU - Girosi, Federico AU - Vardavas, Raffaele PY - 2022 PB - RAND Corporation DB - UniCat UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:134765453 AB - Policymakers in Connecticut are considering various options to increase the affordability of insurance in the state, such as expansions to premium and cost-sharing reduction subsidies on the state's health insurance marketplace, as well as expanded plan offerings, including extending eligibility for the state employee health plan (SEHP) to other groups and a publicly contracted, privately operated plan (the public option plan) offered to individuals on the marketplace. The authors used the RAND Corporation's COMPARE microsimulation model to estimate the impacts of such policy options. For each policy scenario, they calculated enrollment, premiums, consumer spending, and state spending and considered whether the results differed by race, ethnicity, or income group. The individual market reforms substantially increased affordability for people with incomes between 175 and 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), reducing out-of-pocket spending as a share of income by 50 percent in some scenarios. Changes to affordability for higher-income groups were smaller, in part because the proposed policy changes for people with incomes between 200 and 400 percent of FPL were relatively modest and focused only on reducing cost-sharing (not premiums). New costs to the state for 2023 ranged from ER -