The implementation of the Affordable Care Act was associated with large coverage gains in targeted Medicaid expansion groups, including cancer survivors, a study in Medical Care found.
Here are three things to know:
1. The study included non-elderly adults from the 2012 to 2015 National Health Interview Survey. The study authors used information on state Medicaid policies from 2013, expansion decisions in 2015, family structure, income, insurance offers and current coverage to assign adults in each year to one of the following three categories:
- Medicaid-eligible pre-ACA
- Expansion eligible for Medicaid
- Marketplace premium subsidy eligible
The authors used linear probability regressions to estimate coverage changes by eligibility category, stratified by cancer history.
2. The uninsured rate for cancer survivors decreased from 12.4 percent before the ACA to 7.7 percent after the ACA implementation.
3. Despite gains in coverage, about 528,000 cancer survivors and 19.1 million people without a cancer history remained uninsured post-ACA; over half were eligible for Medicaid or subsidized Marketplace coverage.
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