ACA Overview and Goals

The ACA, passed in 2010, sought to give people the ability to access and maintain health insurance.

To achieve these goals, the ACA set up the health insurance marketplace for individuals to review and apply for health insurance coverage. Additionally, the ACA provided qualified individuals with financial assistance to help make their insurance more affordable.

Another item the ACA provided were key protective measures for consumers, like prohibiting coverage limits based on pre-existing conditions and a requirement to cover essential health benefits.

And then in recent years, new legislation has been passed making changes to the original ACA stipulations.

To keep you in the know, we’re going to highlight some of those changes here.

First, the original ACA legislation imposed an individual mandate, which required people to have qualified health insurance or suffer a tax penalty. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act removed this individual mandate and as of 2019 there is no tax penalty for being uninsured.

Then, in 2021, the American Rescue Plan Act temporarily increased and expanded eligibility for premium subsidies.

All this is to say, the ACA will likely continue to change and evolve in the years to come. As you’re getting started in this market, be sure to keep up to date on any new and upcoming legislation.

At the end of this module, we’ve included resources that cover the legislation we just addressed in further detail.

Here at Ritter, we’ve got a team dedicated to ACA sales and marketing, a great resource to keep you informed on the latest with the ACA market.

That should give you a high-level overview of the ACA and its goals.

In the next lesson, we’ll dive into ACA plan structures. See you there!

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