Affordable Care Act

Since 2014 the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, has assisted lower- and moderate-income people who buy insurance on their own on the individual market, providing premium subsidies and discounts on out-of-pocket expenses. Under the law, people who don’t carry compliant insurance face a penalty, the so-called individual mandate. Large employers who don’t offer insurance are also penalized. Read More

Today, Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) officials announce completion of an agreement with Cigna Health Insurance for VUMC’s full participation in Cigna Connect, an Affordable Care Act (ACA) compliant exchange-based individual insurance plan option. Read More

Fewer uninsured patients are walking through the doors of Emergency Departments in states that expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), even though the total number of visits has increased since 2014, according to an Annals of Emergency Medicine study released Monday. Read More

Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act provides patients with a greater choice of hospital facilities, Vanderbilt researchers have found. Read More

The researchers examine whether the financial struggles of some major insurers under the Affordable Care Act reflect a policy failure or a mismatch of these firms’ capabilities and strategies to a newly created market. Read More

A new study shows that access to health insurance can help hold a community together socially, and lack of it can contribute to the fraying of neighborhood cohesion. The study, Beyond Health Effects? Examining the Social Consequences of Community Levels of Uninsurance Pre-ACA, published by the… Read More

Clinics with more non-physician clinicians are associated with better access for Medicaid patients and lower prices for office visits, according to a recent study. Read More

While 12 million Americans are enrolled in health care networks through the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) insurance marketplace, a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) raises concerns about patient access to specialists within these insurance plans. Read More

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear a lawsuit challenging the Obama Administration’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Vanderbilt University legal expert James Blumstein says the true issue surrounding the King v. Burwell case is separation of powers. Read More

On Jan. 1, 2014, hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans will become eligible for federally subsidized health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Vanderbilt University Medical Center is launching a campaign to increase patient awareness about the ACA and help patients enroll in subsidized insurance plans. Read More

Government leaders did not properly recognize the strategic role of IT in defining and implementing policy in rolling out the online insurance exchanges mandated by the Affordable Care Act, according to Douglas C. Schmidt, a professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University. Read More

Alan Wiseman's research shows that women lawmakers, particularly ones in the minority party, are more effective than their male counterparts when it comes to negotiating and getting things done--as they did to end the government shutdown. Read More

The Politics of Health Conference Oct. 3-4 at Vanderbilt is a free event that will speak to the scale, urgency and intimacy of health as a critical American economic and political issue. Read More

Vanderbilt health policy expert John Graves co-authored a report that shows as many as a quarter of people eligible for subsidized health insurance under the Affordable Care Act may be shut out because they don’t have a bank account. Read More

At a midyear Clinical Enterprise Town Hall meeting, those attending were updated on Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s year-to-date performance and the ongoing impact of separate pieces of federal legislation — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the Budget Control Act of 2011, which has come to be known as sequestration. Read More

John Graves, Ph.D. The decision by several states not to expand Medicaid health insurance for the poor may create unintended cuts for hospitals that provide uncompensated care, according to a study by John Graves, Ph.D., a Vanderbilt policy expert in the Department of Preventive Medicine. Read More

Tennessee voters prefer the state run the online Health Care Exchange required by the Affordable Health Care Act, according to a new poll from Vanderbilt University. More than 45 questions were asked of voters on a variety of subjects. Read More

An analysis of Massachusetts’ health care reform program by a Vanderbilt researcher indicates insurance gaps may remain as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) expands insurance coverage beginning in 2014. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have been selected to receive a national grant as part of a push to gauge the coming impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Read More

Vanderbilt law professor James F. Blumstein has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that President Obama’s proposed expansion of Medicaid would put too much of an unforeseeable burden on the states. Read More