As Affordable Care Act increased health insurance coverage, volunteering rose

One of the indirect societal benefits of the Affordable Care Act has been increased levels of volunteerism, especially among lower-income populations, a study from UCLA ’sCalifornia Center for Population Research suggests.Researchers found that instances of self-reported volunteerism increased markedly among people in low-income groups who lived in states that enacted the Affordable Care Act ’s Medicaid expansion.Thestudy, published in  Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, focused on low-income individuals younger than 65. This is the group most affected by the Medicaid expansion, which provided public health insurance for approximately 13 million uninsured Americans.UCLA postdoctoral researcher Heeju Sohn analyzed data from the volunteering supplement of the annual Current Population Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, comparing the pre-ACA years of 2010 –2013 to information collected in 2014 and 2015. The study was co-authored by UCLA sociology professor Stefan Timmermans.“Our thought was to see if we would find any changes in volunteer rates between states that opted to expand Medicaid and states that did not expand,” Sohn said. “And we did. Not only did we see it, but we saw it in a very robust manner.”Research has shown that obtaining health insurance provides individuals greater emotional and financial stability. Other research has shown that when people are financially stable, they are more likely to volunteer. Given that the ACA ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news