Did the ACA Medicaid expansion save lives?

Abstract

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A Health Opportunity Cost Threshold for Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in the United States

“…We used an estimate by Saltzman (48) due to its recency, its focus on the ACA Marketplace, and its estimation of elasticity by age group, which we felt was important given age-related differences in morbidity and mortality. While the weight of evidence demonstrates that extending health insurance coverage reduces morbidity and mortality, estimates of that effect vary widely (73)(74)(75)(76). We chose the midpoint of a range of 239-316 individuals needed to gain insurance to avert one death for those newly covered by Medicaid expansions in California and Washington estimated by Sommers (49).…”

Child Support and the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid Expansions

“…Specifically among the low‐income adult population, the ACA's Medicaid expansions have increased access to care (Courtemanche et al., 2018a, 2018b; Simon et al., 2017; Sommers et al., 2015; Wherry & Miller, 2016), preventive care utilization (Courtemanche et al., 2019; Simon et al., 2017), and prescription drug use (Ghosh et al., 2017). Although the effects on self‐assessed health and health behaviors are less clear (Cotti et al., 2019; Courtemanche et al., 2018a, 2018b, 2019; McMorrow et al., 2017; Simon et al., 2017; Sommers et al., 2015), there is evidence that these expansions have reduced mortality driven by fewer disease‐related and other health conditions amenable to gaining health insurance, such as diabetes (Borgschulte & Vogler, 2019; Goldin et al., 2019; Miller et al., 2019; Sommers et al., 2012).…”

Health Insurance and Mortality: Experimental Evidence from Taxpayer Outreach

“…However, states and non-prots have continued to fund coverage-related outreach eorts at high levels e.g., California's 2018 budget for Navigator programs was $111 million (Commonwealth Fund, 2017). reduce adult mortality in certain contexts (Card, Dobkin and Maestas, 2009;Sommers, Baicker and Epstein, 2012;Sommers, Long and Baicker, 2014;Swaminathan et al, 2018;Khatana et al, 2019;Borgschulte and Vogler, 2019;Miller et al, 2019), 4 but the results that emerge from these studies rely on unveriable and sometimes controversial assumptions (Levy and Meltzer, 2008;Woolhandler and Himmelstein, 2017;Black et al, 2019).…”