Predicting the Health Insurance Coverage Impacts of Complex Policy Changes: A New Tool for States

State Heath Access Data Assistance Center – Julie Sonier

This brief, prepared by State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC), overviews the SHADAC Projection Model, a complex spreadsheet model that states can use to estimate the impacts of policy changes on health insurance coverage. The SHADAC Projection Model provides state officials with the flexibility to update baseline data or test different assumptions, and is based primarily on state-specific data. This model was developed to address the need among states for analysis that is timely, state-specific, relatively inexpensive, and flexible for testing alternative assumptions to predict the coverage impacts of policy changes at the state level. Although the model was constructed specifically to help states project the coverage impacts of the ACA, the approach can be adapted to model the coverage impacts of other reform approaches as well. The brief highlights the model’s approach, data sources, assumptions, and model output.

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