ACA reduced out-of-pocket health costs for families with kids, but they still need help

FINDINGSThe percentage of low- and middle-income families with children that had burdensome out-of-pockethealth care costs fell following the 2014 implementation of thehealthinsurancemarketplaces and Medicaidexpansion provisions of the Affordable Care Act,known widelyas Obamacare, according to a new study by Lauren Wisk, an assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and colleagues.Before the ACA, the study shows,35.6% of the lowest-income families experienced burdensome costs, but this fell to 23.7% post-ACA. For low-income families,the proportion fell from 24.6% to 17.3%, and for middle-income families, it decreased from6.1% to 4.6%. The proportion of high-income families with burdensome costs remained relatively stable over time, at 1.1% pre-ACA and 0.9% post-ACA.BACKGROUNDMost studies of the financial impacts of the ACAhave focused on adults or groups that were directly targeted by individual ACA provisions, such as young adults or dependents affected by the dependent coverage expansion. This is the first study to examine how these policies impacted coverage and costs for familieswithchildren, and it  shows that the ACA benefitted low- and middle-income children by reducing the burden of health care costs for their families.METHODThe researchers examined data from the 2000 –2017 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey for more than 92,000 families with one or more children underthe age of 18and one or more adult parents or guardians. Families with out-...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news