Affordable Care Act Is Shielding Young Adults from Emergency Room Costs

A recent study is showing that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as "Obamacare" by conservatives, is already saving young adults millions of dollars in emergency room costs. The report by the Rand Corporation which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that one of the law's more popular provisions--allowing children between 19-25 years of age to be covered by their parents' insurance plans--is working to protect those children and their families from unexpected emergency room costs.

"Examining hospital emergency department use during the first year after the federal Affordable Care Act provision went into effect, researchers estimate that $147 million in nondiscretionary medical care was newly covered by private insurance. Without the new regulation, those costs would have been paid by young people and their families, or been written off by hospitals as uncompensated care."

This is why health care reform is so important. By ensuring that more Americans have health insurance, the Affordable Care Act allows more Americans to have access to affordable health care. And when, as sometimes happens, we are faced with a significant health emergency that insurance will protect us (and the providers) from financial ruin.

The Affordable Care Act is far from a perfect law, but as this new report shows, in some very important ways it is a significant improvement.