We leverage ACA coverage expansions to study the impact of health insurance on opioid-related emergency department visits while accounting for potentially confounding changes in relevant state-level policies.
More than 30% of HealthCare.gov enrollees do not report race and ethnicity. We used modified Bayesian Improved First Name Surname geocoding imputations to describe enrollment data and assess patterns of missing enrollee race and ethnicity.
This cross-sectional study evaluates the association of a cap on monthly out-of-pocket spending on high-cost drugs with use of these drugs and out-of-pocket spending in California in 2015 and 2016.
This report documents findings from the evaluation of Minnesota's waiver, through which the state implemented the Minnesota Premium Security Plan.
This report documents findings from the evaluation of Oregon's waiver, through which the state implemented the Oregon Reinsurance Program (ORP).
This report documents findings from the evaluation of Alaska's waiver, through which the state implemented the Alaska Reinsurance Program (ARP).
Explores factors affecting the performance and scope of the veteran disability compensation program.
The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic–related recession and resulting job loss raised significant concerns that the U.S. uninsured population could increase, perhaps by millions. However, worrisome predictions about coverage loss have not materialized. RAND researchers (1) assess the importance of temporary provisions in stabilizing health insurance enrollment despite heavy job loss and (2) run simulations using New York state as a case study.
Comparing pre- and post-ACA periods, private dental insurance increased by 4.6% (P=0.013) and annual dental visits were unchanged (2.7%, P=0.071) comparing children likely or unlikely to be affected by the ACA.
Pediatric dental care is an essential health benefit that the Affordable Care Act requires most private health plans to cover. It is unknown how these different pediatric dental coverage offerings may affect uptake of coverage.
In this report, the authors offer an initial assessment of clinically integrated networks (CINs) based on interviews with health system executives, describe how health systems (large and small) are using CINs strategically to compete in crowded health care markets, and identify why CINs bear watching by the Federal Trade Commission and the larger health care community.
This brief describes how a public option for health care—that is, a government-sponsored health insurance plan with publicly determined provider payment rates—would affect insurance costs and coverage.
There is growing interest in a "public option" for individual market insurance to improve affordability and enrollment. The authors consider four public option alternatives that vary based on the rates providers are paid, whether the option is implemented on or off Health Insurance Marketplaces, and whether premium tax credits are available to higher-income individuals.
Viewpoint on the Affordable Care Act, breastfeeding, and breast pump health insurance coverage.
Although the federal government is no longer making cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments to insurers, insurers are still required to provide CSR subsidies to qualifying enrollees. As a result, to fund CSRs, most states and insurers have adopted a practice known as silver loading, in which only the premiums of silver-tiered individual market plans are increased. In this report, the authors address the effects of disallowing this practice.
In this report, the authors analyze how allowing adults ages 50 and older to buy into the Medicare program could affect health insurance coverage, individual market premiums, and federal health care spending. Their findings suggest that a Medicare buy-in could offer significantly more-affordable coverage to older adults while potentially leading to higher premiums for the pool of people remaining on the individual market.
Earlier research established that the federal government would likely save money if federal cost-sharing-reduction (CSR) payments to insurers under the Affordable Care Act were restored, but total health insurance enrollment would decrease. The authors of this report analyze what would happen if federal lawmakers used the savings from restoring CSR payments to provide additional health insurance subsidies or to finance reinsurance.
In a survey of community health center medical directors in 9 Medicaid expansion states and DC, nearly 60% reported difficulty obtaining new specialist visits and multiple access barriers on behalf of their patients.
Following Medicaid expansion, non safety-net hospitals experienced a greater percentage increase in Medicaid stays than did safety-net hospitals, which may reflect patient choice or a crowd-out of private insurance.
Under alternative assumptions about consumer responses, we find that enrollment falls by 2.8 million to 13 million people nationwide and premiums for bronze plans increase by 3 percent to 13 percent when the mandate penalty is removed.
