ABSTRACT
Our fi nal area of focus is providing the poor and needy either with healthcare directly, or more often, with health insurance so they can obtain healthcare on the private market. The American healthcare system changed dramatically on January 1, 2014, with the implementation of health insurance marketplaces, created by the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Prior to the ACA, there were Americans who could not obtain health insurance, either because they could not afford it, or because they had a pre-existing health condition that rendered them uninsurable. Policy research will now be shifting from the uninsured to those who are newly insured, and we are entering a period in American history that is unusually rich for healthcare researchers.
