Compact for care: how the Affordable Care Act marketplaces fell short for a vulnerable population in Hawaii.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010 to expand access to health insurance in the USA and promote innovation in health care delivery. While the law significantly reduced the proportion of uninsured, the market-based protection it provides for poor and vulnerable US residents is an imperfect substitute for government programs such as Medicaid. In 2015, residents of Hawaii from three Compact of Free Association nations (the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and Marshall Islands) lost their eligibility for the state's Medicaid program and were instructed to enrol in coverage via the ACA marketplace. This transition resulted in worsened access to health care and ultimately increased mortality in this group. We explain these changes via four mechanisms: difficulty communicating the policy change to affected individuals, administrative barriers to coverage under the ACA, increased out of pocket health care costs and short enrolment windows. To achieve universal health coverage in the USA, these challenges must be addressed by policy-makers.

The Mortality Effects of Reduced Medicaid Coverage Among International Migrants in Hawaii: 2012-2018.

Objectives. To study the impact on mortality in Hawaii from the revoked state Medicaid program coverage in March 2015 for most Compact of Free Association (COFA) migrants who were nonblind, nondisabled, and nonpregnant.Methods. We computed quarterly crude mortality rates for COFA migrants, Whites, and Japanese Americans from March 2012 to November 2018. We employed a difference-in-difference research design to estimate the impact of the Medicaid expiration on log mortality rates.Results. We saw larger increases in COFA migrant mortality rates than White mortality rates after March 2015. By 2018, the increase was 43% larger for COFA migrants (P = .003). Mortality trends over this period were similar for Whites and Japanese Americans, who were not affected by the policy.Conclusions. Mortality rates of COFA migrants increased after Medicaid benefits expired despite the availability of state-funded premium coverage for private insurance and significant outreach efforts to reduce the impact of this coverage change.

Reporting Heterogeneity and Health Disparities Across Gender and Education Levels: Evidence From Four Countries.

I use anchoring vignettes from Indonesia, the United States, England, and China to study the extent to which differences in self-reported health across gender and education levels can be explained by the use of different response thresholds. To determine whether statistically significant differences between groups remain after adjusting thresholds, I calculate standard errors for the simulated probabilities, largely ignored in previous literature. Accounting for reporting heterogeneity reduces the gender gap in many health domains across the four countries, but to varying degrees. Health disparities across education levels persist and even widen after equalizing thresholds across the two groups.

Carbohydrate intake modulates the effect of the ABCA1-R230C variant on HDL cholesterol concentrations in premenopausal women.

The R230C variant of the ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1) gene has been consistently associated with decreased HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C) concentrations in several studies in the Mexican mestizo population. However, information on how diet composition modifies the effect of the ABCA1-R230C variant on HDL-C concentrations is very scarce. The aim of the present study was to analyze whether the effect of ABCA1-R230C on HDL-C concentrations is modulated by dietary factors in a nationwide population sample of 3591 adults from the National Health and Nutrition Survey conducted by the State's Employees' Social Security and Social Services Institute. All participants answered a validated questionnaire to assess health status and weekly food consumption. Fasting blood samples were drawn for biochemical analysis and DNA extraction, and the ABCA1-R230C variant was genotyped using TaqMan assays. Statistical analyses consisted of simple linear and multiple regression modeling adjusting for age, BMI, smoking, and alcohol consumption. The overall C risk allele frequency was 9.3% and the variant was significantly associated with low HDL-C concentrations in both sexes. A significant negative correlation between carbohydrate consumption and HDL-C concentrations was observed in women bearing the R230C variant (P = 0.021) and a significant gene-diet interaction was found only in premenopausal women (P = 0.037). In conclusion, the effect of the ABCA1-R230C gene variant on HDL-C concentrations is modulated by carbohydrate intake in premenopausal women. This finding may help design optimized dietary interventions according to sex and ABCA1-R230C genotype.