The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is making our health care system stronger and more sustainable for our children. Today we celebrate the consumer protections, such as rate review and the medical loss ratio, which guard against inefficiency in the insurance system and give families the assurance that premium costs are going towards medical care and quality improvements.

• In a recent victory for families, Wisconsin was denied a waiver that would have slowed implementation of the medical loss ratio (MLR) provision of the ACA, which ensures that insurance companies are spending 80 to 85 percent of premium dollars on medical care and health care quality improvement. Read more about that provision in this December WCCF blog post.
• Rate reviews improve transparency and hold insurance companies accountable for unreasonable rate hikes of over 10%. You can see the results of rate reviews in Wisconsin here. Wisconsin has also received $5 million under the new law to fight unreasonable premium increases.
• Tax credits for small businesses make it easier for parents to get insurance coverage from their employers. Credits of up to 35% are currently available for small employers that provide insurance.

Sara Eskrich