Grading Healthcare Marketplaces
Hello all!
Welcome to my new student research blog! My name is Erika May, and I’m a senior here at Providence College, which means I will sadly have to say goodbye to my home-away-from-home in just a few short months. I was born and raised in the great state of New Jersey where I enjoyed many summers spent “down the shore” taking endless road trips listening to Bruce Springsteen.
I entered PC undeclared, but after taking a truly fascinating and inspiring course in the summer following my freshman year, “HPM101,” with Dr. Hackey, I quickly knew that I wanted to declare Health Policy and Management (HPM) as my major. The major itself takes an interdisciplinary approach to studying the relationship between health and society where professors offer a variety of courses for students who will lead in the development of healthier communities through professional practice, research, and service. In addition, I am an art history minor, simply because I have a passion for the arts and enjoy learning as much as I can about the subject matter.
Following the completion of the HPM course I just mentioned, Dr. Hackey reached out to me and offered me a research assistant position within the HPM department. I was, still am, and will continue to be incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work alongside Dr. Hackey — a brilliant, passionate professor who truly loves doing what he does. I started working on some small projects here and there, but it was not until the fall of my junior year when research became a huge part of my academic career. Dr. Hackey and I were in the middle of working on an independent study when we started chatting about the current states’ marketplace enrollment data with the newly implemented Affordable Care Act (ACA). State marketplaces are resources where individuals, families, and small businesses can learn about their health coverage options; compare health insurance plans based on costs, benefits, and other important features; choose a plan; and enroll in coverage. The marketplace also provides information on programs that help people with low to moderate income and resources to pay for coverage. I began to conduct research and input data into Excel spreadsheets on all three types of the health insurance marketplaces (SBMs, FFMs, SPMs) in all 50 states, including Washington, D.C., in the years 2014-2015. After many months of analysis and data calculations, Dr. Hackey and I co-authored a paper titled, “Performance of Health Insurance Marketplaces,” which was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in July 2015.
My research this semester builds off my previous publication. Over the summer, Dr. Hackey, Sabrina Guilbeault, and I received exciting news that we would be offered a grant from The Collaborative to continue building off our previous research. During the past four months, we have been hard at work creating and establishing a report card for state health insurance marketplaces. Yes, you heard me correctly; we will be giving each state a grade (A-F) along with a GPA (4.00-0.00) based on four key measures to compare the performance of all 51 marketplaces (50 states plus the District of Columbia) at the end of the second enrollment period in March 2015. We are hoping that our results will offer insights into how well the health insurance marketplaces fulfilled the goals established by the ACA. Stay tuned to see our progress and to learn more!
Peace, love & health policy,
Erika May
