Health Care Reform Has Its First Birthday

One year ago on Wednesday, the health care reform legislation (or PPACA, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) was passed by Congress. Technically, the President didn't sign the legislation into law until March 30 last year, but tomorrow is close enough. We just couldn't wait to update our charts.

CRFB (and many others) spent the better part of a year tracking and commenting on the health care reform discussions and legislative proposals, arguing that bending the health care cost curve should be one of the central pillars of reform. We released tables of proposed policies, papers comparing all the plans (see here and here), tons of other releases and op-eds, and an analysis of health care reform's impact on the long-term fiscal outlook for the U.S.

In light of continuing to update readers on the budgetary impact of health reform, we've updated our featured health charts to incorporate the latest CBO estimates of repealing PPACA--which should serve as a proxy for the budgetary impact of the legislation.

[chart:1760]

[chart:1759]