Olajumoke A Olateju, Chan Shen, James Douglas Thornton
{"title":"The Affordable Care Act and income-based disparities in health care coverage and spending among nonelderly adults with cancer.","authors":"Olajumoke A Olateju, Chan Shen, James Douglas Thornton","doi":"10.1093/haschl/qxae050","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) significantly reduced uninsured individuals and improved financial protection; however, escalating costs of cancer treatment has led to substantial out-of-pocket expenses, causing severe financial and mental health distress for individuals with cancer. Mixed evidence on the ACA's ongoing impact highlights the necessity of assessing health-spending changes across income groups for informed policy interventions. In our nationally representative survey evaluating the early- and long-term effects of the ACA on nonelderly adult patients with cancer, we categorized individuals-based income subgroups defined by the ACA for eligibility. We found that ACA implementation increased insurance coverage, which was particularly evident after 2 years of implementation. Early post-ACA (within two years of implementation), there were declines in out-of-pocket spending for the lowest and low-income groups by 26.52% and 38.31%, respectively, persisting long-term only for the lowest-income group. High-income groups experienced continuously increased out-of-pocket and premium spending by 25.39% and 34.28%, respectively, with a notable 122% increase in the risk of high-burden spending. This study provides robust evidence of income-based disparities in financial burden for cancer care, emphasizing the need for health care policies promoting equitable care and addressing spending disparities across income brackets.</p>","PeriodicalId":94025,"journal":{"name":"Health affairs scholar","volume":"2 5","pages":"qxae050"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11135644/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Health affairs scholar","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/haschl/qxae050","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/5/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) significantly reduced uninsured individuals and improved financial protection; however, escalating costs of cancer treatment has led to substantial out-of-pocket expenses, causing severe financial and mental health distress for individuals with cancer. Mixed evidence on the ACA's ongoing impact highlights the necessity of assessing health-spending changes across income groups for informed policy interventions. In our nationally representative survey evaluating the early- and long-term effects of the ACA on nonelderly adult patients with cancer, we categorized individuals-based income subgroups defined by the ACA for eligibility. We found that ACA implementation increased insurance coverage, which was particularly evident after 2 years of implementation. Early post-ACA (within two years of implementation), there were declines in out-of-pocket spending for the lowest and low-income groups by 26.52% and 38.31%, respectively, persisting long-term only for the lowest-income group. High-income groups experienced continuously increased out-of-pocket and premium spending by 25.39% and 34.28%, respectively, with a notable 122% increase in the risk of high-burden spending. This study provides robust evidence of income-based disparities in financial burden for cancer care, emphasizing the need for health care policies promoting equitable care and addressing spending disparities across income brackets.