Srikanth Kadiyala, senior economist at UCLA CHPR, shares findings of a study published in Health Affairs on the effects of the ACA on health care use and outcomes, looking specifically at older adults near age 65 and cancer detection rates among this group.

Using cancer registry data from 2010 to 2016, Kadiyala and his co-authors Fabian Duarte, associate professor of economics at the University of Chile; Gerald Kominski, senior fellow at UCLA CHPR, and Antonia Riveros, a graduate student at the University of Chile, found that the ACA reduced the cancer detection spike occurring at age 65 by 45%. More than two-thirds of the newly detected cancers were at the early or middle stages, implying substantial potential for positive health benefits.

His talk highlights the implications of conducting more research on this near-elderly population, which may guide policies to improve health care and outcomes for this group, as well as the overall key role that health insurance has on disease detection.