Washington Post features multiple IHPI Medicaid studies in coverage of Affordable Care Act's effects on individuals

On Monday, Sept. 30, a major story in the Washington Post took a look at the evidence to date on the impact of the Affordable Care Act on the health of individuals - and shone the spotlight on a range of research published by IHPI teams. 

Veteran health policy reporter Amy Goldstein wrote: "Michigan has emerged as a hub for understanding the ACA’s effects on health because University of Michigan researchers have been rigorously evaluating the Healthy Michigan Plan, as the state calls its Medicaid expansion covering about 650,000 people." Goldstein interviewed IHPI director John Z. Ayanian, M.D., M.P.P., who leads the team carrying out the Healthy Michigan Plan evaluation. She also interviewed several Michiganders covered by the Healthy Michigan Plan during a trip to the Detroit area.

The story, which appeared on the front page of the October 1 print edition of the paper and was shared widely on social media, included data from the following: 

• An official IHPI report  to the state and federal government, on results from a portion of the Healthy MIchigan Plan evaluation 
• A new paper in the Journal of General Internal Medicine by a team of IHPI members and staff involved in the official evaluation of the Healthy Michigan Plan. Read more about this study in this IHPI story.
• A 2017 paper in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery by IHPI members from the Department of Cardiac Surgery and their colleagues in Virginia, comparing outcomes for heart operations in Michigan and Virginia, which at the time had not expanded Medicaid. Read the IHPI story about it here.
• A 2018 paper in JAMA Network Open by members of the HMP evaluation team on access to contraception and family planning services among HMP enrollees
• A 2019 paper published via the National Bureau of Economic Research by an IHPI member and her colleagues on disease-related death rates in states that did and did not expand Medicaid. Read the IHPI story on this work

The Post article specifically looks at evidence regarding the impacts of the ACA on individuals. But IHPI researchers have published many other studies looking at the ACA's impacts since it became law in 2010, and the Healthy Michigan Plan evaluation has yielded many other insights into the effects of Medicaid expansion that could hold lessons for states that have recently expanded their own programs or have not yet done so.