Latinx persons have lower levels of health insurance coverage than other racial and ethnic groups even after passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Using 182 interviews from the American Voices Project, this study examines how U.S.-born Latinx adults experience health-care coverage and health-care use. Interview data demonstrate that health-care access is insufficient to ensure full health-care use. Health-care use costs are so high that they are insurmountable for Latinx Americans. Wealth and liquid assets constrain and are constrained by health-care use. Family members become a safety net. This study can inform policies and programs aiming to improve equity in Latinx individuals’ health-care access by centering the importance of reducing economic costs of health-care use.
Authors
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.7758/RSF.2024.10.4.08
- ISBN
- 2377-8253 2377-8261
- Pages
- 18
- Published in
- United States of America
- Rights
- © 2024 Russell Sage Foundation. Flores Morales, Josefina. 2024. “Can’t Buy Me Health-Care Access: Qualitative Experiences of U.S.-Born Latinx Adults’ Health Insurance Coverage and Health-Care Use Post ACA.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 10(4): 173–90. https://doi.org/10.7758/RSF.2024.10.4.08. This article benefited from comments from the following people: Dr. Harleen Kaur, Dr. Anthony Williams, Dr. Karina Santellano, Dr. Uriel Serrano, Christina Chica, Dr. Vilma Ortiz, and members of Dr. Ortiz’s student working group. The author also thanks the AVP staff and leadership, AVP pilot staff and research fellows, Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality staff, RSF staff, and the anonymous reviewers. The author also benefited from funding from the Propel Postdoctoral Scholars program at Stanford University. Direct correspondence to: Josefina Flores Morales, at jfloresm@stanford.edu, 1701 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto, CA 94304, United States.
