{"id":6783,"date":"2022-07-08T15:23:17","date_gmt":"2022-07-08T19:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chirblog.org\/?p=6783"},"modified":"2022-07-08T15:23:44","modified_gmt":"2022-07-08T19:23:44","slug":"june-research-roundup-reading-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chirblog.org\/june-research-roundup-reading-2\/","title":{"rendered":"June Research Roundup: What We’re Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s finally summer, and during the latest heat wave, the CHIR team cooled off with new health policy research. In June, we reviewed studies on improving race and ethnicity data collection in health insurance marketplaces, the value of health savings accounts, and variation in medical debt accumulation across the U.S.<\/p>\n
RAND Health Care, Imputation of Race and Ethnicity in Health Insurance Marketplace Enrollment Data, 2015-2022 Open Enrollment Periods<\/a>, HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), June 13, 2022. Because Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace enrollees are not required to report their race and ethnicity when signing up for a marketplace plan, the federal marketplace is missing race and ethnicity data for around one-third of applicants. ASPE contracted with RAND researchers to develop a statistical method to impute missing race and ethnicity data for consumers who selected a marketplace plan on HealthCare.gov during annual open enrollment periods (OEP) between 2015 and 2022.<\/p>\n What it Finds<\/em><\/p>\n Why it Matters<\/em> Sherry A. Glied, Dahlia K. Remler, and Mikaela Springsteen, Health Savings Accounts No Longer Promote Consumer Cost-Consciousness<\/a>, Health Affairs, June 2022. Using National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data from 2007-2018, authors examined the value of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) with respect to changing trends in the health insurance market. HSAs were established to allow enrollees in certain high deductible health plans to pay for health care expenses with pre-tax dollars. Proponents of HSAs anticipated that eligible consumers would be incentivized to select high deductible plans and would be more \u201ccost conscious\u201d when spending their HSA dollars.<\/p>\n What it Finds<\/em><\/p>\n Why it Matters<\/em> Fredric Blavin, Breno Braga, and Anuj Gangopadhyaya, Which County Characteristics Predict Medical Debt?<\/a>, Urban Institute, June 2022. Using credit bureau data from August 2021, researchers examine which U.S. counties have the largest share of people with medical debt in collections, and how county-level socioeconomic and health factors impact medical debt.<\/p>\n What it Finds<\/em><\/p>\n Why it Matters<\/em> It\u2019s finally summer, and during the latest heat wave, the CHIR team cooled off with new health policy research. In June, we reviewed studies on improving race and ethnicity data collection in health insurance marketplaces, the value of health savings accounts, and variation in medical debt accumulation across the U.S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1],"tags":[239,574,674,248,782,316],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chirblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6783"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chirblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chirblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chirblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chirblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6783"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/chirblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6792,"href":"https:\/\/chirblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6783\/revisions\/6792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chirblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chirblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chirblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chirblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nImproving race and ethnicity data collection is a critical first step<\/a> for health insurance marketplaces seeking to advance health equity. By augmenting self-reported data, ASPE and RAND provide a more comprehensive picture of the racial and ethnic makeup of marketplace enrollment. The analysis suggests that Black and Hispanic\/Latino individuals are likely undercounted in enrollment data. Some state-based marketplaces are exploring strategies<\/a> to fill these gaps in demographic data, such as leveraging insurers to obtain missing information from enrollees. ASPE and RAND\u2019s model is another tool that can inform efforts to reduce inequities in coverage access.<\/p>\n\n
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\nEvaluation of health care payment structures must account for changing market conditions. Although HSAs were originally intended to encourage cost-consciousness and efficiency in the private insurance market, in recent years, HSAs have disproportionately benefited higher-income workers who are not facing financial barriers to care and subsequently not incentivized to reduce their spending. This study suggests that the policy has not led to cost savings, and instead provides a regressive tax break for higher-income people. Policymakers should consider other paths to reduce health care costs.<\/p>\n\n
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\nMillions of adults in the United States are burdened<\/a> with medical debt, which often leads to foregoing medical care, financial instability, and increased risk of bankruptcy. This study highlights where medical debt is most prevalent and identifies factors associated with medical debt, serving as a roadmap for stakeholders seeking to alleviate the burden and corroborating other studies showing medical debt\u2019s disproportionate impact on vulnerable populations<\/a>. These findings also suggest that policy solutions should account for the cyclical interplay of health and socioeconomic factors that affect medical debt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"