Dear John,

Join us for a Policy Spotlight event on 11/28 featuring a conversation between Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil and Nora D. Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health.

Exploring Medicaid Populations

The 2014 Affordable Care Act (ACA) expansion broadened coverage for low-income adults in expansion states.

In the November issue of Health Affairs, Sameed Khatana and his team of coauthors examine whether Medicaid expansion was associated with increased access to outpatient cardiovascular care for nonelderly beneficiaries in expansion states.

Khatana and coauthors determine that “there was a 38.1 percent greater increase in expansion states in the rate of beneficiaries with outpatient visits for cardiovascular disease management associated with Medicaid expansion relative to nonexpansion states.”

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 extended pregnancy Medicaid eligibility to one year postpartum in participating states. 

Jamie Daw and coauthors examine the health and social needs of the population this program is intended to serve, and find that Medicaid respondents were less likely than those with commercial insurance at the time of childbirth to have a usual source of care.

Medicaid respondents also reported food insecurity, intimate partner violence, and financial strain.

Health Affairs Branded Post:

Immersive technology: creating new digital frontiers for patients and providers

Patrick Maher et al.

Sponsored by PwC

What’s The Worst That Could Happen? A Toothless FDA

Holly Fernandez Lynch et al.

Celebrating National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month

During November, we're highlighting Indigenous voices and research on native populations.

In the February 2020 Racism & Health issue, Heather Tirado Gilligan takes a look at the work of Thomas. D. Sequist, who serves as the chief patient experience and equity officer at Mass General Brigham health system, and the ambitious plans to make Mass General Brigham an antiracist institution.