On Tuesday, March 6, the Brookings Institution’s Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy and the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy co-hosted an event examining where the individual health insurance market is today and where it is heading.

The event featured an opening presentation followed by a panel discussion featuring speakers from a variety of perspectives. The discussion examined how the individual market has evolved since the implementation of the main Affordable Care Act (ACA) reforms in 2014, the likely impact of recent policy changes implemented by the Trump Administration and Congress, and how federal policy toward the market might evolve in years to come.

Here were the covered topics:

  • An overview of recent individual market trends and policy changes
  • Short-term plans pose risks to consumers
  • Recent policy changes are expanding state flexibility in beneficial ways
  • What is the next national goal for health policy?
  • Increasing competition among providers can reduce the cost of care

Read more about individual health care insurance by Sobin Lee, Paul Ginsburg and Will Palmisano at Brookings