Health Care Coverage

Evaluation of any health plan begins with understanding who is covered; what kind of coverage they have; and how much the coverage will cost the federal government, states, and individuals.

Costs and coverage for the ACA, and how those have evolved during the ACA's implementation, have been extensively analyzed by many experts, including RAND. But what about other policy options?

For example, RAND assessed four different options for financing health care delivery in Oregon, highlighting the kinds of tradeoffs policy makers will have to make between coverage and costs.

We also analyzed the American Health Care Act (AHCA) (the version proposed by the House of Representatives on March 6, 2017) to estimate how it would affect health insurance coverage and federal spending in 2020 and 2026.

In a congressional briefing, RAND senior economist, Christine Eibner, provided a useful overview of our work on costs and coverage. She also explained how RAND experts use the COMPARE micro simulation model to provide ongoing assessments as policy options evolve.