Declines in Uncompensated Care Costs for The Uninsured under the ACA and Implications of Recent Growth in the Uninsured Rate
Issue Brief
We exclude 2014 from our analysis of uncompensated care costs in the pre- and post-ACA periods because it is a transition year when the ACA’s major coverage provisions were implemented.
MEPS identifies these expenditures as Medicaid payments that were made for individuals not reported to be enrolled in the program at any time during the year. Some of these reported payments may result from confusion between Medicaid and other state and local programs or may be for people not enrolled in Medicaid but presumed eligible by a provider who ultimately received payments from Medicaid. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, MEPS HC-201: 2017 Full-Year Consolidated Data File (Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, August 2019), https://meps.ahrq.gov/data_stats/download_data_files_detail.jsp?cboPufNumber=HC-201.
Appendix
Because the MEPS is a survey of the civilian noninstitutionalized population, it does not collect expenditure data for some services, such as long-term care provided in institutional settings and residential treatment for mental health and substance use disorders.