Full Citation
Title: Changes in New Mothers’ Health Care Access and Affordability under the Affordable Care Act
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2020
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: The time after giving birth is critical to the health of new mothers and their children. Though most women have health insurance coverage during their pregnancy and delivery, new mothers often become uninsured postpartum, which can threaten their abilities to access and afford needed health care. Following implementation of the coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2014, thousands of new mothers gained insurance coverage, but few analyses have assessed how much new mothers’ health care access and affordability have improved under the law. In this brief, we examine changes in access to and affordability of health care services for new mothers under the ACA using data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). 1 We also assess whether changes in the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of our sample of new mothers contributed to observed changes in health care access and affordability. We find the following: ◼ The uninsurance rate for new mothers fell from 20.2 percent in 2011 to 11.3 percent in 2015 and remained relatively stable through 2018. ◼ New mothers were less likely to report unmet health care needs due to cost after implementation of the ACA coverage expansions in 2014; between 2011–13 and 2015–18, the share of new mothers reporting unmet needs for medical care dropped by 60 percent, and the shares reporting unmet needs for prescription medicines and specialist care fell by 40 percent and 44 percent. ◼ The share of new mothers very worried about paying their medical bills also fell from 20.9 percent in 2011–13 to 15.5 percent in 2015–18. ◼ In 2015–18, new mothers were more likely to report having seen a general doctor (60.9 percent versus 55.6 percent) and received a flu vaccine (52.5 percent versus 44.6 percent) in the past 12 months than in 2011–13. ◼ Changes in health care affordability and access were generally consistent with and without adjusting for new mothers’ changing demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, suggesting these changing characteristics were not driving health care access and affordability improvements during the study period. We find that new mothers experienced significant improvements in health care access and affordability after implementation of the ACA’s major coverage provisions. Together with other evidence on the ACA’s role in reducing uninsurance among women and new mothers and improving access to and affordability of health care among parents with low incomes and other adults, our results suggest the ACA likely contributed to new mothers’ gains in health care access and affordability over the study period. But even after ACA implementation, many new mothers still faced barriers to accessing needed health care services, which can negatively affect their health and their family’s well-being.
User Submitted?: No
Authors: McMorrow, Stacey; Johnston, Emily M.; Thomas, Tyler W.; Genevieve, M. Kenney
Publisher: Urban Institute's Health Policy Center
Data Collections: IPUMS Health Surveys - NHIS
Topics: Family and Marriage, Population Health and Health Systems
Countries: