The Effect of Affordable Care Act Reforms on Specialty Drug Coverage: A State-by-State Comparison (2014)

Principal Investigator: Erin Taylor, PhD, MSPH, RAND Corporation

This project aims to inform federal and state policy-makers seeking to assure access to affordable care for patients who use specialty drugs. The researchers will use publicly available data from the health insurance marketplaces to compare and contrast specialty drug coverage across the states, and they will analyze the impact of the marketplaces by comparing specialty drug coverage in the marketplaces with what is available through other plans such as those offered by Medicare Part D. Finally, using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), they will model the impacts of coverage characteristics on the affordability of care for marketplace enrollees at risk for high medical spending.

Publications

Specialty Drug Benefit Design and Patient Out-of-Pocket Costs in the ACA Marketplaces
(June 2015, Presentation at State Health Research and Policy Interest Group Meeting) 

Specialty Drug Benefit Design and Patient Out-of-Pocket Costs in the ACA Marketplaces
(June 2016, Poster presentation at the American Society of Health Economists [ASHEcon] Biennial Conference)

Specialty Drug Benefit Design and Patient Out-of-Pocket Costs in the ACA Marketplaces
(November 2016, Panel paper at Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management [APPAM])