What is it about?
In the USA, people with limited English proficiency (LEP) disproportionately experience gaps in health insurance coverage and access to care. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 included reforms that could improve these outcomes. We used regression models to estimate changes in coverage and access after 2010 for adults with high vs. limited English proficiency, adjusting for socio-economic status, demographic characteristics, and health care needs. We found that adults with LEP showed larger improvements than adults with high English proficiency in having a usual source of care (5 percentage points) and receiving needed medical care and dental care (1.4 percentage points and 2.8 percentage points, respectively). These data suggest that disparities in health care access by English proficiency narrowed after 2010, the year of passage of the ACA.
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Why is it important?
People with low English proficiency are important to study, given that this group constitutes a large and growing population in the US with heightened risk for gaps in health care access and poor health outcomes. Little is known about how health policy can improve outcomes for people with low English proficiency. Understanding the impact of the ACA specifically on this vulnerable group is crucial for informing current discussions in health care policy.
Perspectives
I hope this paper helps to raise awareness of the importance of considering people with language access difficulties when making changes to health policy.
Rebecca Myerson
University of Wisconsin Madison
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Disparities in Health Insurance Coverage and Access to Care by English Language Proficiency in the USA, 2006–2016, Journal of General Internal Medicine, January 2020, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s11606-019-05609-z.
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