Abstract A134: The impact of the Affordable Care Act on the colorectal cancer landscape in Louisiana
Authors: Elewonibi Bilikisu , Pereira Malesa , Zou Yaqi 
Published: December 2023

Louisiana (LA) is the only state in the deep south opting to expand Medicaid. This, along with the federal tax subsidies for low income individual to buy insurance on the health marketplace, facilitated health care access to medically underserved populations in LA. This study examines the differences in sociodemographic characteristics of those diagnosed with colorectal cancer (CRC) before and after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was implemented in LA, highlighting differences in receipt of timely CRC treatment and survival rates. Patient demographics, cancer treatment, and outcomes data were obtained from the Louisiana Tumor Registry and the sample population included adults diagnosed with CRC. Pre-ACA was defined from 1/2012-6/30/2016 and the post-ACA was 7/1/2016- 12/31/2020. Variables examined were age, race, sex, poverty, socioeconomic status, insurance, marital status, distance to urban center, stage of diagnosis, number of tumors, type and date of any treatment received. Descriptive analysis summarized sociodemographic and cancer diagnosis variables for the sample across the two time periods. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine the impact of ACA and Kaplan-Meier plots and cox regression analysis was used to examine the impact of ACA on survival rates. 20,497 people were diagnosed with CRC during the study time period (pre-ACA 10,044 vs post-ACA 10,453) and there were significant differences noted with age, marital status, poverty, SES, insurance, and all cancer diagnosis variables. The number of uninsured dropped by two-thirds (6% vs 2%, &lt;0.001) while the number of those on Medicaid increased (6.5% vs 14%, &lt;0.001). There were no significant differences in diagnosis by race in the overall sample however, among the Medicaid population, pre-ACA, 57% of those diagnosed were Black vs 40% who were White. Post-ACA, 50% of those diagnosed were Black vs 46% White. The percentage of patients diagnosed at Stage I increased post-ACA by 1% while the percentage of patients diagnosed at Stage III decreased by 2% (&lt;0.0001). The percentage of those diagnosed without tumors increased from 74% pre-ACA to 78% post-ACA. The number of those who received chemotherapy and radiation also increased pre vs post-ACA. Regression models showed significant impact of ACA on stage of diagnosis, receipt of timely treatment, and uninsured rates. There were no significant differences in survival time across the two time periods, however, separated by insurance status, the Medicaid and private insurance populations saw significant improvements in survival time post-ACA. Expanded Medicaid coverage through Healthy LA began in the summer of 2016. Since then, more than 732,000 individuals have benefited from Medicaid expansion coverage and 92,607 have received federal subsidies. The results of this study present evidence to other southern states on the advantages of Medicaid expansion in cancer treatment and survival.  

Citation Format: Bilikisu Elewonibi, Malesa Pereira, Yaqi Zou. The impact of the Affordable Care Act on the colorectal cancer landscape in Louisiana [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 16th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2023 Sep 29-Oct 2;Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2023;32(12 Suppl):Abstract nr A134.