Young adults report better health and lower out-of-pocket healthcare expenses under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Harvard University researchers analyzed data on adults between the ages of 19 to 34 in the 2002-2011 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, which is conducted annually by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Starting in 2010, the PPACA allowed people younger than 26 to stay on their parents’ health plans, so the researchers compared the experiences of 19- to 25-year-olds with those of 26- to 34-year-olds. The percentage of the younger group with health insurance rose from 62.7 percent to 69.2 percent with the implementation of the PPACA in 2010, compared with a slight decline (from 72.7 percent to 71.5 percent) for the older group.
