New Managed Care Findings from Columbia University Described (Medicaid Expansion and Racial-ethnic Health Care Coverage Disparities Among Low-income Adults With Substance Use Disorders): Managed Care

2023 AUG 22 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health Policy and Law Daily -- Current study results on Managed Care have been published. According to news reporting from New York City, New York, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “In light of historical racial-ethnic disparities in health care coverage, the authors assessed changes in coverage in nationally representative samples of Black, White, and Hispanic low-income adults with substance use disorders after the 2014 Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion. Data from 12 years of the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2008-2019) identified low-income adults ages 18-64 years with alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, or heroin use disorder (N5749,033).”

Financial support for this research came from NIH National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from Columbia University, “Trends in coverage fo-cused on non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic White, and Hispanic individuals. Age-and sex-adjusted difference -in-differences analysis assessed effects of expansion state residence on insurance coverage for the three groups. Before Medicaid expansion (2008-2013), 38.5% of Black, 37.6% of White, and 51.2% of Hispanic low-income adults with substance use disorders were uninsured. After expansion (2014-2019), these proportions significantly declined for Black (24.2%), White (22.0%), and Hispanic (34.5%) groups. Decreases in rates of individuals without insurance and increases in Medicaid coverage tended to be more pronounced for those in expansion states than for those in nonexpansion states. In nonexpansion states, the proportions of those without insur-ance significantly decreased among Black and White individuals but not among Hispanic individuals. Proportions receiving past -year substance use treatment did not significantly change and remained low postexpansion: Black, 10.7%; White, 14.6%; and Hispanic, 9.0%. After Medicaid expansion, coverage increased for low-income Black, White, and Hispanic adults with substance use disorders. For all three groups, Medicaid coverage disproportionately increased among those living in expansion states.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “However, coverage remained far from universal, especially for Hispanic adults with substance use disorders.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Medicaid Expansion and Racial-ethnic Health Care Coverage Disparities Among Low-income Adults With Substance Use Disorders. Psychiatric Services, 2023;74(6):604-613. Psychiatric Services can be contacted at: Amer Psychiatric Publishing, Inc, 800 Maine Ave SW, Suite 900, Washington, DC 20024, USA.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Mark Olfson, Columbia University, Vagelos Coll Phys & Surg, Dept. of Psychiatry, New York, NY 10027, United States. Additional authors for this research include Melanie M. Wall, Christine Mauro, Colleen L. Barry, Jean Choi and Ramin Mojtabai.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.20220155. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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