Increase in proportion of young adults with private coverage for nondiscretionary visits to ER
WEDNESDAY, May 29 (HealthDay News) -- Enactment of the dependent-coverage provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which establishes nationwide eligibility for young adults (aged 19 to 25 years) to retain coverage under their parents' private health plans, correlated with an increase in the proportion of young adults who were protected from the financial consequences of emergency department visits, according to research published in the May 30 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Andrew Mulcahy Ph.D., M.P.P., from the RAND Corporation in Arlington, Va., and colleagues assessed more than 480,000 nondiscretionary visits made to emergency departments from 2009 to 2011 to investigate how the ACA provision affected private insurance coverage of such visits. Changes in coverage among adults aged 19 to 25 years were compared with those in adults aged 26 to 31 years (controls), who were unaffected by the provision.
The researchers found that there was a 3.1 percent increase in private coverage of nondiscretionary visits to emergency departments by young adults after the ACA provision took effect, compared with similar visits in the control group. There was also a significant 1.7 percent decrease in visits among uninsured young adults. There were no changes in the rates of nondiscretionary visits covered by Medicaid or other non-private insurers. The expansion in coverage correlated with an estimated 22,072 visits to emergency departments by newly insured young adults, with associated costs of $147 million covered by private insurance during a one-year period.
"Our results suggest that the ACA's dependent-coverage provision increased financial protection for young adults, their parents, and hospitals by sheltering them from the potentially catastrophic cost of treating emergency medical conditions," the authors write.
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