Panel:
State-Level Impacts of the Affordable Care Act: Coverage, Access, and Costs
(Health Policy)
Thursday, November 3, 2016: 1:15 PM-2:45 PM
Columbia 9 (Washington Hilton)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
Panel Organizers: Caroline Au-Yeung, University of Minnesota
Panel Chairs: Sharon Long, Urban Institute
Discussants: Kathleen T. Call, State Health Access Data Assistance Center and Lisa Dubay, Urban Institute
This panel includes four presentations that examine the effects of the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) on a range of outcomes, including health insurance coverage, access to care, service utilization, and costs and affordability. In each study, the researchers examine outcomes as a function of state health policy decisions and attributes.
The first study looks at the impacts of state decisions to expand or not expand Medicaid, examining coverage, access, utilization, and health status among the Medicaid expansion target population of low-income adults and comparing results before and after the 2014 expansion in expansion and non-expansion states. The next study examines the mechanisms that explain the expansion effects found in the first study and also examines differences in the access/utilization impacts across states as a function of state-specific pre-ACA Medicaid eligibility rules. The third analysis considers how employer-based insurance offers changed in the first year after the ACA was implemented and examines the extent to which these changes are due to employer type, workforce characteristics, and state insurance policy attributes including Medicaid eligibility rules and the state’s health insurance exchange type. Finally, the fourth study looks at out-of-pocket costs faced by patients taking specialty drugs as a function of specialty drug benefit design in health plans available in the 37 states offering coverage via healthcare.gov.
The findings from these four studies provide evidence that can inform and facilitate federal and state policymaking and public management in the areas of Medicaid policy and insurance market regulation.
