Patient Protection and Affordable Act "Bronze" Health Insurance Coverage
Letter from Congressional Budget Office Director Douglass W. Elmendorf to Senator Olympic Snow.

"In late November, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of
the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) released an analysis of average
premiums for health insurance under the Patient Protection and Affordable
Care Act (PPACA) as introduced.1 That analysis compared the estimates of
average premiums in 2016 under the proposal to those that would prevail
under current law and distinguished the effects among the markets for
individually purchased (nongroup) coverage, for small-group coverage, and
for large-group coverage.

This letter responds to your request for additional information about
expected premiums under that proposal for policies that would meet the
minimum requirements necessary to avoid paying a penalty for not having
insurance. As a rule, individuals would be required to have a policy
covering the “essential benefits” specified in the legislation and having an
actuarial value of at least 60 percent in order to avoid such a penalty. (A
plan’s actuarial value is the share of costs for covered services that it would
pay, on average, with a broadly representative group of people enrolled.)
That minimum level of coverage is designated as a “Bronze” plan..."