Impact of medicaid expansion on screenable versus non-screenable gastrointestinal cancers

Background

Medicaid expansion afforded increased healthcare access to low-income Americans contributing to a positive impact on cancer outcomes. However, it is unclear if these benefits were mainly due to enhanced access to cancer screening and earlier diagnosis versus access to cancer treatment

Methods

The National Cancer Database (NCDB) was queried between 2010 and 2021 for Medicaid and uninsured patients with GI malignancies. Patients were stratified by screenable (SGI) and non-screenable (NGI) cancers and expansion state (ES) categories: early (EES) and late (LES) adopters, and non-expansion state (NES) cohorts. Statistical analyses, including difference-in-difference (DiD) and adjusted models, assessed the impact of Medicaid expansion on stage at diagnosis.

Results

There were 230,159 pre-expansion and 539,028 post-expansion patients. There was an increase in Medicaid coverage (14.8 % vs. 11.1 %) and a concomitant decline in the uninsured population (5.3 % vs. 8.2 %) in the post-expansion era. For SGI cancers, Medicaid expansion was associated with significantly lower mean stage at diagnosis (DiD Coef. −0.12; p < 0.01). For NGI cancers, Medicaid expansion was associated with a lower mean stage at diagnosis but with much smaller coefficient (DiD Coef. −0.015; p < 0.01). Comparing EES and LES to NES, EES had more impact on lower mean stage at diagnosis (vs NES DiD Coef. −0.16; p < 0.01) compared to LES (vs NES DiD Coef. −0.02; p = 0.04) for SGI cancers. For NGI cancers, there was a modest reduction in mean stage at diagnosis only for EES (vs NES DiD Coef. −0.04; p < 0.01).

Conclusion

Medicaid expansion, particularly for SGI cancers and early adopters, had a profound impact in lowering the mean stage at diagnosis. This emphasizes that long-term advantages of providing access to preventive care and screening, and thus earlier treatment, may be one of the main mechanisms of Medicaid expansion on improving cancer outcomes for GI malignancies.

Policy summary

To establish the benefits of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act 2010 for gastrointestinal cancer patients particularly in screening.