Dental Coverage and Care When Transitioning From Medicaid to Medicare.

Importance: Millions of adults with low incomes lose Medicaid eligibility when transitioning to Medicare at age 65 years. However, it remains unclear how this transition is associated with dental care.

Objective: To examine the consequences of transitions from Medicaid to Medicare on coverage and use of dental services.

Availability Of Adult Dental Plans In The Affordable Care Act Marketplaces, 2016-23.

The Affordable Care Act Marketplaces may improve access to dental insurance, but little is known about the availability of such coverage. We used data from state and federal Marketplace sources to describe the availability of adult dental plans, including Stand-alone Dental Plans and those embedded in medical plans. We also examined the characteristics of counties with limited dental insurer participation and those that experienced a net loss of Stand-alone Dental Plan insurers between 2016 and 2023.

Closing Gaps or Holding Steady? The Affordable Care Act, Medicaid Expansion, & Racial Disparities in Coverage, 2010-2021.

Context: The Affordable Care Act's (ACA) Medicaid expansion produced major gains in coverage. However, findings on racial and ethnic disparities are mixed and may depend on how disparities are measured. This study examines both absolute and relative changes in uninsurance from 2010-2021 by race and ethnicity, stratified by Medicaid expansion status.

Cardiovascular equity and health center funding: Associations of unmet hypertension and diabetes need by race/ethnicity and federal grants at federally qualified health centers, 2014-2019.

Importance: Racial and ethnic disparities in chronic disease are a major public health priority.

Objective: To determine if the amount of federal grant funding to federally-qualified health centers (FQHCs) was associated with baseline overall prevalence of uncontrolled hypertension and uncontrolled diabetes, as well as prevalence by racial and ethnic subgroup.

Design: Cross-sectional multivariate regression analysis of Uniform Data System 2014-2019, which includes clinic-level data from each FQHC regarding demographics, chronic disease control by race and ethnicity, and grant funding.

Navigating the Labyrinth of Pregnancy-Related Coverage for Undocumented Immigrants: An Assessment of Current State and Federal Policies.

Insurance coverage for prenatal care, labor and delivery care, and postpartum care for undocumented immigrants consists of a patchwork of state and federal policies, which varies widely by state. According to federal law, states must provide coverage for labor and delivery through Emergency Medicaid. Various states have additional prenatal and postpartum coverage for undocumented immigrants through policy mechanisms such as the Children's Health Insurance Program's "unborn child" option, expansion of Medicaid, and independent state-level mechanisms.

Coverage and Access Changes During Medicaid Unwinding.

Importance: States resumed Medicaid eligibility redeterminations, which had been paused during the COVID-19 public health emergency, in 2023. This unwinding of the pandemic continuous coverage provision raised concerns about the extent to which beneficiaries would lose Medicaid coverage and how that would affect access to care.

Objective: To assess early changes in insurance and access to care during Medicaid unwinding among individuals with low incomes in 4 Southern states.

Costs of Drug Development and Research and Development Intensity in the US, 2000-2018.

Importance: Understanding the cost of drug development can help inform the development of policies to reduce costs, encourage innovation, and improve patient access to drugs.

Objective: To estimate the cost of drug development by therapeutic class and trends in pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) intensity over time.

Design, Setting, And Participants: In this economic evaluation study, an analytical model of drug development constructed using public and proprietary sources that collectively cover data from 2000 to 2018 was used to estimate the cost of bringing a drug to market, overall and for specific therapeutic classes.

Unwinding And The Medicaid Undercount: Millions Enrolled In Medicaid During The Pandemic Thought They Were Uninsured.

Policy responses to the March 31, 2023, expiration of the Medicaid continuous coverage provision need to consider the difference between self-reported Medicaid participation on government surveys and administrative records of Medicaid enrollment. The difference between the two is known as the "Medicaid undercount." The size of the undercount increased substantially after the continuous coverage provision took effect in March 2020.

Survey-Reported Coverage in 2019-2022 and Implications for Unwinding Medicaid Continuous Eligibility.

Importance: Policy changes and the COVID-19 pandemic affected health coverage rates, and the "unwinding" of Medicaid's continuous coverage provision in 2023 and 2024 may cause widespread coverage loss. Recent coverage patterns in national survey and administrative data can inform these issues.

Objective: To assess national and state changes in survey-based Medicaid, private insurance, and uninsured rates between 2019 and 2022, as well as how these changes compare with administrative Medicaid enrollment totals.

COVID-19 Medicaid Continuous Enrollment Provision Yielded Gains In Postpartum Continuity Of Coverage.

The Medicaid continuous enrollment provision mandated by the Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020 effectively prohibited the termination of enrollees from Medicaid during the COVID-19 public health emergency, including people enrolled in Medicaid during pregnancy. Using data from the Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System, we found that the rate of continuous Medicaid enrollment during the twelve months postpartum increased from 59.3 percent for births during March-December 2018 to 90.

Clinical Risk and Outpatient Therapy Utilization for COVID-19 in the Medicare Population.

Importance: Multiple therapies are available for outpatient treatment of COVID-19 that are highly effective at preventing hospitalization and mortality. Although racial and socioeconomic disparities in use of these therapies have been documented, limited evidence exists on what factors explain differences in use and the potential public health relevance of these differences.

Objective: To assess COVID-19 outpatient treatment utilization in the Medicare population and simulate the potential outcome of allocating treatment according to patient risk for severe COVID-19.

Medicare Switching: Patterns Of Enrollment Growth In Medicare Advantage, 2006-22.

Medicare Advantage (MA) has grown rapidly over the course of the past two decades and is projected to continue to grow. We examined sources of new enrollment in MA and analyzed the switching patterns between MA and traditional fee-for-service Medicare, using more recent and more detailed data than in previous analyses. We found that switching from fee-for-service Medicare to MA more than tripled between 2006 and 2022, whereas switching from MA to fee-for-service Medicare decreased, with the change rates accelerating since 2019.