Uncompensated hospital care costs fell by an estimated $7 billion in 2014 because of marketplace coverage and state Medicaid expansions under the Affordable Care Act, according to a March 23 report by the Department of Health & Human Services. State Medicaid expansions accounted for an estimated $5 billion of the reduction, the HHS analysis found.
U.S. hospitals provided $50 billion in uncompensated care in 2013, the report found. Based on estimated coverage gains in 2014, the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) estimates that uncompensated care costs were $7.4 billion lower in 2014 than they would have been had insurance coverage remained at 2013 levels. Hospitals spent an estimated $27 billion in uncompensated care in 2014, compared with an estimated $35 billion at 2013 coverage levels, a 21% reduction in uncompensated care spending. To arrive at the figures, ASPE analyzed uncompensated hospital care levels and cost reports from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, census data, estimates from Gallup-Healthways, and Medicaid enrollment data.
While $5 billion of the reduction came from the 28 states that have expanded Medicaid, $2 billion resulted from the 22 states that have not expanded Medicaid, according to ASPE. The government noted that if the nonexpansion states had increases proportionately as large in Medicaid coverage as did the expansion states, their uncompensated care costs would have declined by an additional $1.4 billion.
March 23 marked the fifth anniversary of President Obama’s signing the ACA into law. In a statement by the White House, the president praised the law’s success, and its impact on patients and the country.
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