Four Years Later: Insurance Coverage and Access to Care Continue to Diverge between ACA Medicaid Expansion and Non-Expansion States

摘要

A growing literature documents that low-income adults in states adopting Medicaid eligibility expansions under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have experienced improvements in coverage and access to care, increased health care utilization, and improved financial outcomes, compared to low-income adults in states that did not expand their Medicaid programs. Most of these studies rely on a relatively short period following the expansion of eligibility of only one or two years. As new data become available, it is important to update these analyses to examine the longer term effects of Medicaid expansion. There may be lagged effects of this policy change, particularly if it takes eligibleindividuals some time to learn about the new policy, enroll, and begin using care.