Impact of the Affordable Care Act’s Dependent Coverage Expansion on the Health Care and Health Status of Young Adults

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

<p class="first" id="P2">The Dependent Coverage Expansion (DCE), a component of the Affordable Care Act, required private health insurance policies that cover dependents to offer coverage for policyholders’ children through age 25. This review summarizes peer-reviewed research on the impact of the DCE on the chain of consequences through which it could affect public health. Specifically, we examine the impact of the DCE on insurance coverage, access to care, utilization of care, and health status. All studies find that the DCE increased insurance coverage, but evidence regarding downstream impacts is inconsistent. There is evidence that the DCE reduced high out-of-pocket expenditures and frequent emergency room visits and increased behavioral health treatment. Evidence regarding the impact of the DCE on health is sparse but suggestive of positive impacts on self-rated health and health behavior. Inferences regarding the public health impact of the DCE await studies with greater methodological diversity and longer follow-up periods. </p>

Related collections

Most cited references 31

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment: Evidence from the First Year

Sarah A. Finkelstein, S Taubman, O. B. Wright … (2012)

In 2008, a group of uninsured low-income adults in Oregon was selected by lottery to be given the chance to apply for Medicaid. This lottery provides an opportunity to gauge the effects of expanding access to public health insurance on the health care use, financial strain, and health of low-income adults using a randomized controlled design. In the year after random assignment, the treatment group selected by the lottery was about 25 percentage points more likely to have insurance than the control group that was not selected. We find that in this first year, the treatment group had substantively and statistically significantly higher health care utilization (including primary and preventive care as well as hospitalizations), lower out-of-pocket medical expenditures and medical debt (including fewer bills sent to collection), and better self-reported physical and mental health than the control group.

0 comments Cited 256 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Failure and delay in initial treatment contact after first onset of mental disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication.

Ronald C Kessler, Patricia Berglund, Philip Wang … (2005)

An understudied crucial step in the help-seeking process is making prompt initial contact with a treatment provider after first onset of a mental disorder. To provide data on patterns and predictors of failure and delay in making initial treatment contact after first onset of a mental disorder in the United States from the recently completed National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Nationally representative face-to-face household survey carried out between February 2001 and April 2003. A total of 9282 respondents aged 18 years and older. Lifetime DSM-IV disorders were assessed with the World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Initiative version of the World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview (WMH-CIDI), a fully structured interview designed to be administered by trained lay interviewers. Information about age of first professional treatment contact for each lifetime DSM-IV/WMH-CIDI disorder assessed in the survey was collected and compared with age at onset of the disorder to study typical duration of delay. Cumulative lifetime probability curves show that the vast majority of people with lifetime disorders eventually make treatment contact, although more so for mood (88.1%-94.2%) disorders than for anxiety (27.3%-95.3%), impulse control (33.9%-51.8%), or substance (52.7%-76.9%) disorders. Delay among those who eventually make treatment contact ranges from 6 to 8 years for mood disorders and 9 to 23 years for anxiety disorders. Failure to make initial treatment contact and delay among those who eventually make treatment contact are both associated with early age of onset, being in an older cohort, and a number of socio-demographic characteristics (male, married, poorly educated, racial/ethnic minority). Failure to make prompt initial treatment contact is a pervasive aspect of unmet need for mental health care in the United States. Interventions to speed initial treatment contact are likely to reduce the burdens and hazards of untreated mental disorder.

0 comments Cited 238 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Interaction terms in nonlinear models.

Bryan Dowd, Maria C Norton, Pinar Karaca-Mandic (2012)

To explain the use of interaction terms in nonlinear models. We discuss the motivation for including interaction terms in multivariate analyses. We then explain how the straightforward interpretation of interaction terms in linear models changes in nonlinear models, using graphs and equations. We extend the basic results from logit and probit to difference-in-differences models, models with higher powers of explanatory variables, other nonlinear models (including log transformation and ordered models), and panel data models. EMPIRICAL APPLICATION: We show how to calculate and interpret interaction effects using a publicly available Stata data set with a binary outcome. Stata 11 has added several features which make those calculations easier. LIMDEP code also is provided. It is important to understand why interaction terms are included in nonlinear models in order to be clear about their substantive interpretation. © Health Research and Educational Trust.