Dive Brief:
-
An analysis from The Commonwealth Fund finds cost-sharing under marketplace plans remained steady from 2014 to 2015, and the stable premiums from that time do not reflect greater costs borne by enrollees.
-
The study says it looked at eight vehicles for cost-sharing, including deductibles, copayments, coinsurance, and out-of-pocket limits, and compared the findings to those of cost-sharing under employer-based health plans.
-
It concluded overall, cost-sharing is higher in catastrophic, bronze, and silver plans than it is in employer-based plans, while cost-sharing in most gold plans is about the same as in employer-based plans.
Dive Insight:
The December 2015 Comonwealth report sought to follow up on the group's previously reported December 2014 finding that average premiums for ACA health plans hadn't changed from 2014 to 2015.
"A common response to this finding was the question: Did this mean that insurers increased patient cost-sharing by imposing higher deductibles and copayments?" the authors wrote.
It found only two of the eight studied types of cost-sharing increased significantly from 2014 to 2015: out-of-pocket limits, which went up by almost 2%; and copayments for nonpreferred drugs, which went up by almost 3%.
Two types of cost-sharing saw statistically significant decreases from 2014 to 2015: copayments for generic drugs went down by about 2%, and copayments for primary care visits dropped by almost 5%.
The study found deductibles were statistically unchanged.