With more than 354 million unscheduled acute care visits annually in the United States, emergency departments (EDs) and emergency physicians (EPs) are critical to the care and cost of care provided to patients. Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the piloting of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), EDs and more specifically, emergency physicians will have an even greater ro...

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) aimed to achieve nearly universal health insurance coverage in the United States through a combination of insurance market reforms, mandates, subsidies, health insurance exchanges, and Medicaid expansions, most of which took effect in 2014. This paper estimates the causal effects of the ACA on health insurance coverage in 2014 using data from the American Community...

Since at least the early 1990s, economists have found substantial evidence of “job lock” in United States: workers who get health insurance from their employer are less likely to switch jobs. Early work showed stronger job lock among groups that place a higher value on insurance, whereas more recent has focused measuring effect specific policies lock. We combine these approaches by replicating ...

The US Supreme Court settled one of the nation's loudest political arguments on June 28 when it ruled that the “individual mandate” and almost all of the other provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are constitutional [1]. Policy-makers, pundits and the general public will continue to argue over whether the ACA is good or bad policy and whether it should be retained and tweaked over time o...

As this commentary first appeared on www.annals.org, the Supreme Court was hearing arguments in one of the most important social policy cases of the past several decades: the constitutionality of the requirement that individuals obtain minimum health insurance coverage under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The “individual mandate” is the centerpiece of the ACA, and removin...

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) 2010 received two major boosts last year with the upholding of most of the law as legal by the Supreme Court, and the re-election of President Barack Obama. As 2013 proceeds, critical parts of the law are being implemented across the United States. At the heart of the ACA is the federal objective of expanding insurance coverage. A substantial...

The Bright Futures guidelines published by the American Academy of Pediatrics offer a comprehensive agenda for improving the health of people from birth to age 21 years. The guidelines are the culmination of a century of multidisciplinary, multiorganizational efforts in the United States to prevent illness and promote health in children and adolescents, and, in turn, the adults they become. Reg...