The government will help millions of people pay for insurance, It will also permit millions mote to receive free coverage through the Medicaid program for the poor.
In all, the plan aims to make health insurance available to thirty-two million people now without it. People will be able to buy private policies through marketplaces called exchanges to be administered by the states. Illegal immigrants will not be able to take part.
An estimated eighty-three percent of people under age sixty-five who are in the United States legally now have insurance coverage. The plan is expected to raise that to ninety-five percent within several years.
People over sixty-five are covered by the Medicare insurance program which the government created in nineteen sixty-five.