Uninsurance Among Young Adults Continues To Decline, Particularly In Medicaid Expansion States

Effects of the Affordable Care Act's young adult insurance expansion on prescription drug insurance coverage, utilization, and expenditures

“…This is consistent with research that found a disproportionate impact of the ACA provision on health insurance among higher-income young adults. 21 However, recent evidence suggests that 2014 ACA coverage provisions, including state Medicaid expansions and the availability of federal subsidies to purchase coverage in state and federal marketplaces, have substantially increased health insurance coverage for young adults with low and moderate incomes. 21 These marketplaces may be one way to further expand drug insurance coverage, as these plans are required to cover prescription drugs as one of the 10 essential health benefits.…”

“…1 Since September 23, 2010 the ACA has required that all private health insurance plans cover dependents until they reach age 26 regardless of marital status, residency, financial dependency, or other characteristics. 2,3 Since this provision became effective, insurance coverage has risen by nearly 10 percentage points for [19][20][21][22][23][24][25] year olds, with an uninsured rate of 22.6% in 2013. 4 Several studies have supported the finding that the new law has decreased the number of uninsured young adults by increasing the prevalence of private insurance coverage.…”

The Effect of the 2014 Medicaid Expansion on Insurance Coverage for Newly Eligible Childless Adults

“…Across all states and income groups, young adults experienced larger reductions in uninsurance between 2013 and 2014 than did older adults, and larger gains in insurance coverage have also been documented for Black and Hispanic adults relative to white adults (Buchmueller et al, 2016;Courtemanche, Marton, and Yelowitz, 2016;McMorrow et al, 2015a;McMorrow et al, 2015b).…”

“…Existing reports of demographic patterns in insurance coverage between 2013 and 2014 either do not distinguish between expansion and nonexpansion states (Courtemanche, Marton, and Yelowitz, 2016; or do not stratify on income and pre-ACA eligibility in a way that allows conclusions to be drawn about take-up among the newly eligible (Cohen and Martinez, 2015b;McMorrow et al, 2015a;McMorrow et al, 2015b). This is true even of the estimates reported by Buchmueller et al (2016), which captured changes in the uninsurance rate by race and ethnicity specifically for adults with family income below 138 percent of the FPL.…”

Changes in Health Insurance Coverage Associated With the Affordable Care Act Among Adults With and Without a Cancer History

“…Evidence from the first 2 years of the program indicates that the ACA was associated with reduced uninsured rates among adults not eligible for Medicare, with estimates ranging from 7.8 to 14.9 percentage points. 14,15 The decrease was evident in all states and sociodemographic groups though more pronounced for adults in states that expanded Medicaid, 16,17 in persons with low socioeconomic status, and in racial and ethnic minorities. 18,19 The decline in uninsured rates nationally comes from a 5.5 percentage point increase in private coverage, and a 2.2 percentage point increase in public (Medicaid) enrollment.…”