The Affordable Care Act's Dependent Care Coverage Expansion and Behavioral Health Care.

This study shows that insurance coverage increased and financial barriers to getting behavioral health treatment fell. Improving access to care only led to increases in mental health treatment utilization, while substance use treatment utilization remained unchanged. IMPLICATIONS: The ACA succeeded in extending insurance benefits to a population that has been historically underinsured. Along with those benefits, young adults enjoyed greater access to behavioral health care and a measure of financial protection from high costs. While the evidence has yet to be presented for the full implementation of the ACA, if these results are typical of its other provisions, then the ACA will have achieved some of its most important objectives. PMID: 28869210 [PubMed - in process]
Source: Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics - Category: Psychiatry Tags: J Ment Health Policy Econ Source Type: research