This week, Dr. Alex Blum and a team of physicians concluded their research on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act. Dr. Blum wrote a guest blog for Young Invincibles.  Check it out below! 

This week, I published, along with a team of physician researchers, a paper in the journal Pediatrics that suggests that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is not only helping millions of young adults get insured – but that insurance means young Americans all across the country are more likely to get the health care they need.

We looked at 3 states that expanded coverage to young adults prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act.  The research showed that compared to 17 states without such laws, young adults in states with laws were more likely to gain their own personal physician, have regular check ups and no longer have to go without needed health care because it cost too much.

This pre-testing of health reform, looking at state laws that preceded national health reform, underestimates the actual impact of the ACA. Unlike state laws, the ACA applies to all individuals up to age 26 and is not subject to limitations on self-insured health insurance plans.  The Employee Retirement Income Security Act exempts all self-insured health insurance plans from the state laws we studied and nearly half of all Americans have self-insured policies. It is possible that we only identified half of the likely impact of the ACA provision.