The Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion improved access to care, financial security, and numerous health outcomes for millions of people in the U.S..  But these coverage gains from the past decade are at high risk for reversal in the coming years, under new policies including Medicaid work requirements, provider tax limits, and immigration-related changes in eligibility.  This talk will review research evidence on the relationship between coverage expansion and health outcomes, the potential adverse effects of the impending policy changes, and how state actions can mitigate or exacerbate some of these harms.

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Benjamin Sommers, M.D., Ph.D., is the Huntley Quelch Professor of Health Care Economics at the Harvard School of Public Health, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is a health economist and primary care physician whose main research interests are health policy for marginalized populations, health insurance, and the health care safety net. He has received numerous awards, including the Health Services Research Impact Award and the Article-of-the-Year Award from AcademyHealth, and has published over 200 research articles and reports. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019.  From 2021-2023, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), and he was appointed as the senior official leading ASPE from 2022-2023. His research has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Journal of Health Economics, and Health Affairs, and covered by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. He received both his Ph.D. in Health Policy and his M.D. from Harvard.