Access, ACA, Spending, And More

The April 2021 issue of Health Affairs includes articles on some of our most popular topics: access to care, how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has affected coverage, the effects of various policies on health spending, and much more.

Access

Medicare Savings Programs provide subsidies for various portions of premiums and cost sharing for poor Medicare beneficiaries, but what is the experience of those whose incomes exceed those programs’ eligibility thresholds? Eric Roberts and coauthors find that Medicare enrollees with incomes just above the coverage “cliff” face almost $600 in additional out-of-pocket expenses over a two-year period, as well as an 8.5-percentage-point higher likelihood of incurring catastrophic health care costs.

Utsha Khatri and coauthors analyze data from the...