The article by Cheri Wilson, “Patient Safety and Healthcare Quality: The Case for Language Access”, highlights 
the challenges of providing Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) to patients with 
Limited English Proficiency (LEP). As the US pursues high-value, high-performance healthcare, our ability 
to meet the needs of our most vulnerable will determine whether we succeed...

As health care reform continues its rollout in the US, restructuring the delivery system is a growing focus. With a surge in demand for care as a result of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), declining reimbursement rates from Medicare and Medicaid, and pressure for greater transparency in cost and quality, many health care organizations are assessing the potential rewards and...

Recent market and legislative changes to the health insurance industry, particularly the additional fees associated with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the current premium taxes paid on fully-insured plans has prompted the State of Wisconsin to consider the advisability of adopting a self-insurance arrangement for its state employee medical plan. Within a self-insured program, these fees and...

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) makes health insurance available to nearly all Americans and the law requires people to maintain health coverage. That coverage can be obtained through a government program (like Medicare or Medicaid), an employer, directly through an insurer, or through a policy purchased through a health insurance marketplace (also known as a state health insurance exchange) wher...

OBJECTIVES Mexican-heritage Latinos have lower prevalence of hypertension, but have worse patterns of treatment and control compared with non-Latino whites. This study examined the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance expansion on reducing disparities in treatment and medication use among Mexican-heritage Latinos with hypertension. RESEARCH DESIGN Using the 2009-2014 waves of the...

Near-elderly individuals, those 60 to 64 years old, have high health care needs and, if uninsured, often delay costly care until they enroll in Medicare (Card et al. (2008); McWilliams et al. (2009)). The passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2014 provided new coverage options to uninsured near-elderly individuals. Although understanding the extent to which the ACA affected the near-elder...

Inequalities in medical care are endemic in the USA. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), passed in 2010 and fully implemented in 2014, was intended to expand coverage and bring about a new era of health-care access. In this review, we evaluate the legislation's impact on health-care equity. We consider the law's coverage expansion, insurance market reforms, cost and affordability provisions, and del...

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduces many new mechanisms into the insurance marketplace that significantly impact business as usual. Although the changes are of great magnitude and, at times, intertwined with each other, this article sets out to introduce many of the changes in a simplified format. The 2014 changes will impact each market (individual, small-group, large-group and self-insur...