Affordable Care Act funding: An analysis of grant programs under health care reform
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law on March 23, 2010, and funds were appropriated to expand access to care, implement broad private insurance reforms, and enhance the public health infrastructure. In order to administer these new grant programs, the ACA created a number of new funding sources in the following categories:
- Community-based prevention: Includes a series of programs to increase investment in the public health infrastructure. The primary source of funding for these programs is from the Prevention and Public Health Fund (PPHF).
- Health Centers and National Health Service Corps: Includes funding for federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), the National Health Service Corps (NHSC), and school-based health centers.
- Health workforce: Includes a series of programs to enhance the capacity of the primary care workforce.
- Long-term care: Includes grant programs to support coordinated long-term care services.
- Market reform: Includes a series of grants that helped states reform their private insurance markets and prepare for the 2014 coverage expansion.
- Maternal and child health: Includes multiple grant programs targeted to serve at-risk families and prevent teenage pregnancy.
- Medicaid & CHIP: Includes grant programs focused on the health of enrollees in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
- Medicare: Includes a series of programs funded by the ACA to boost the effectiveness and efficiency of the Medicare program. This issue brief updates an earlier CHRT brief and examines how grants funded by the ACA have been distributed to states and local organizations since the law’s passage, with a focus on funds awarded during fiscal year (FY) 2014. This brief also includes a detailed analysis of ACA funding in Michigan.
Suggested citation: Lausch, Kersten; Fangmeier, Joshua; Udow-Phillips, Marianne. Affordable Care Act Funding: An Analysis of Grant Programs under Health Care Reform — FY2010–FY2014. February 2015. Center for Healthcare Research & Transformation. Ann Arbor, MI.