Health Care Cost and Affordability
Increasingly high and unaffordable health care costs can lead to forgoing medical care, which can impact overall health. This blog explores rates of forgone care due to cost over time, by state, and by subgroup using SHADAC’s State Health Compare.
The latest data released from the Minnesota Health Access Survey (MNHA) show sharp increases in the uninsured rate in the state, increasing from 3.8% (a historic low) to 5.8% between 2023 and 2025. This equates to approximately 116,000 more Minnesotans being uninsured. Learn more in this blog.
In this brief for the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), we use California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) data to better understand California health care costs, including whether and how affordability may have changed between 2019 and 2024.
SHADAC researchers use MEPS-IC data to look at national and state-level employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) access, enrollment, and cost data in 2024 as compared to 2023.
What are health insurance premiums? What is a deductible? SHADAC reviews these and other common health insurance terms in this blog.
This issue of gaps in care for teen health and young adults was the focus of a recent research study by SHADAC Research Fellow Robert Hest and SHADAC co-founder Kathleen Call published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
What Is a “Countercyclical” Policy or Program? How Medicaid Protects People When the Economy Falters
Countercyclical policy or programs (like Medicaid) have government spending increase during economic downturns and decrease during economic growth. This protects access to health care coverage - learn how in this blog.
State Health Compare uses data from the 2023 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) to update various measures. Learn about this NHIS data and measures in this blog.
This Basics Blog explores health care costs and affordability by defining key terms and summarizing how some of the most recent state-level household surveys are asking health care consumers about these topics.
“Forgone care” describes when someone does not use or access health care despite a need for it.