Report

The Affordable Care Act builds on the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 to extend federal parity protections to 62 million Americans. The parity law aims to ensure that when coverage for mental health and substance use conditions is provided, it is generally comparable to coverage for medical and surgical care.

By: Kirsten Beronio, Rosa Po, Laura Skopec, Sherry Glied

This report provides estimates of Medicare Parts A, B, and D savings from the Affordable Care Act to seniors and people living with disabilities enrolled in traditional Medicare.

New results released today by the National Center for Health Statistics show that the dependent-coverage provision of the Affordable Care Act has continued to produce insurance coverage gains among young adults during 2011.

The Affordable Care Act includes several provisions that are expected to significantly improve women's health. The Affordable Care Act improves coverage for important preventive services and maternity care, promotes higher quality care for older women, and ends the gender discrimination that requires women to pay more for the same insurance coverage as men.

The Affordable Care Act prohibits health plans from putting a lifetime dollar limit on most benefits received by Americans in any health plan renewing on or after September 23, 2010. While some plans already provided coverage with no limits on lifetime benefits, millions of Americans were previously in health plans that did not.

This brief reviews the literature on the cost of contraceptive coverage in private and public health insurance programs.  This brief was written by John Bertko, F.S.A., M.A.A.A., Director of Special Initiatives and Pricing in the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; Sherry Glied, Ph.D., Assistant