Study: State-Level Individual Mandates Would Reduce Number of Uninsured by Nearly 4 Million in 2019; Health Plan Premiums Would Fall 12 Percent

Close to 4 million Americans would gain health insurance, and premium costs would drop an average of nearly 12 percent, if every state joined Massachusetts and New Jersey in enacting state-level individual mandates. These mandates would replace the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) penalty for not having health insurance, a fee that Congress eliminated, effective 2019. That’s according to a new Commonwealth Fund/Urban Institute report by the Urban Institute’s Linda Blumberg, Matthew Buettgens, and John Holahan examining what would happen if all states adopted their own individual insurance mandates.

The ACA requires most Americans to enroll in an insurance plan or pay a...