Complex Insight - Understanding our world

Its not often that we get to model, assess and evaluate the outcome of major insurance system changes. With the advent of affordable care act - the United States is providing such an opportunity. Rand Corporaton released figures based on their cost modeling of the Affordable Care Act that indicate out-of-pocket health care costs will drop from $1,463 to just $34 per year in 2016 for the approximately11.5 million amercans who get insurance via the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid. President Obama's health care reform law will also reduce the likelihood that this group will face catastrophic medical costs -- defined as 10 percent of income -- by 40 percent, according to the study. As the law comes into effect it will be interesting to assess the efficacy of these studies and contrast them with data provided by those who oppose the affordable care act and hopefully in doing so - step closer to better healthcare and economic policy informed by data.