The Latest Research, Commentary, And News From Health Affairs
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Dear John,
On the anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, we examine the financial impact of the ACA’s insurance subsidies and reflect on the past eleven years under the law.
Marketplace Subsidies Associated With
Reduced Financial Burden
Today is the eleven-year anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In addition to the largest expansion of insurance coverage since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, the law ushered in health care payment and service delivery changes.
One criticism the law has received is that the health coverage offered through the ACA Marketplaces
has high levels of deductibles and copayments, leaving care unaffordable to many. In their recent Health Affairs paper, Charles Liu and coauthors analyzed expenditure survey data and found sizable reductions in the cost burden of health care for low-income Marketplace enrollees. Low-income adult enrollees experienced a 17.2 percent decline in out-of-pocket spending and an almost one-third drop in the likelihood of having catastrophic health expenditures across the study period of 2008 to 2017.
For a look back at the first decade of the ACA, revisit our March 2020 issue, The Affordable Care Act Turns 10. It offers a comprehensive review of what the law accomplished and what remains to be done.
In their new Health Affairs Blog post, Soleil Shah and coauthors argue
that, in health care, public benefit corporations could simultaneously improve individual patient outcomes and collective benefit without sacrificing institutions’ financial stability. Also, Sara Rosenbaum
and coauthors look at the structure of and interactions between several key provisions of the American Rescue Plan Act, including the COVID-19 coverage and treatment mandate, the postpartum Medicaid
coverage option, and the Medicaid expansion incentive and its relationship to section 1115 of the Social Security Act.
A new episode of A Health Podyssey was released today. Listen as Alan Weil interviews March authors Maximilian J. Pany and Lucy Chen about their research comparing team-based and solo care. They found that patients who have their care managed by teams were more likely to have their chronic disease brought under control, regardless of the composition of the team members. Among solo providers, physicians and nonphysicians exhibited little meaningful difference in performance. Elevating Voices In Women’s History Month: Geriatrician Diane E. Meier won a MacArthur “genius award” for her work in palliative care at Mount Sinai. She shared a powerful story regarding overtreatment and end-of-life care in her Narrative Matters essay, "I Don’t Want Jenny To Think I’m Abandoning Her."
If you are learning from and enjoying the free content on our blog and in our podcasts, please consider supporting our work.
Do Teams Work Better Than Solo Providers? Spoiler Alert: Yes
Listen to Alan Weil interview Maximilian Pany and Lucy Chen, both MD-PhD candidates in health policy at
Harvard Medical School, on their research, which found that provider teams outperformed solo providers in managing chronic diseases.
Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewedjournalat the intersection of health, health care, and policy.
Published monthly by Project HOPE, the journal is available in print and online. Late-breaking content is also found through healthaffairs.org, Health Affairs Today, and Health Affairs Sunday Update.
Project HOPE is a global health and humanitarian relief organization that places power in the hands of local health care workers to save lives across the globe. Project HOPE has published Health Affairs since 1981.
