The Commonwealth Fund Reports on Medicaid Expansion's Effect on Out-of-Pocket Health Care Spending for Low-Income Families

The Commonwealth Fund Reports on Medicaid Expansion's Effect on Out-of-Pocket Health Care Spending for Low-Income Families

The Commonwealth Fund recently released a study using data from the federal Consumer Expenditure Survey to examine how states’ participation in the Medicaid expansion affected families’ health care spending.

Compared to families in nonexpansion states, low-income families in states that did expand Medicaid saved an average of $382 in annual spending on health care. In these states, low-income families were less like to report any out-of-pocket spending on insurance premiums or medical care than were similar families in nonexpansion states.

For families that did have some out-of-pocket spending, spending levels were lower in states that expanded Medicaid. Low-income families in Medicaid expansion states were also much less likely to have catastrophically high spending levels. The form of coverage expansion — conventional Medicaid or waiver rules — did not have a statistically significant effect on these outcomes....