Study results support the theory that Medicaid expansion should improve food and beverage choices for low-income households. (Photo: Shutterstock)
Households that benefited from the expansion of Medicaid switched from sugary drinks and increased their consumption of diet soda and water, according to a new study in Health Economics.
"Households in expansion states significantly increased their purchase of diet soda and bottled water," Xi He, a post-doctoral researcher at the Iowa State University and co-author of the study told UConn Today. "There was no change in purchase of regular soda. But overall, these results indicate that Medicaid expansion, in states that did expand, shifted people's purchases to products with less sugar." There was also no effect on the purchase of non-diet carbonated drinks, fruit juice, milk or tea, the study found.
Recommended For You
The study resulted from the theory that Medicaid expansion should improve food and beverage choices for low-income households. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provided states with the option to participate in an expanded Medicaid program beginning in January 2014. According to statistics from U.S. Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, as of 2017, approximately 75 million Americans in 33 states were participating in Medicaid.
The study, authored by He, University of Connecticut Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics Rigoberto Lopez, and economist Rebecca Boehm (Union of Concerned Scientists), used data from the Nielsen Consumer Panel dataset (NCP) at the University of Chicago's Kilts Center for Marketing across 52 U.S. metro areas.
"Besides the obvious benefit of subsidized health care, there is an additional spillover of the program in promoting a healthy diet by reducing one of the three evils of the American diet — sugar — which is bad in all respects, from calories to cancer to obesity," Lopez said. "The program contributes not just to cover the treatment of patients but also in a more preventive way."
The researchers found the results of the study promising, making the connection that families enrolled in Medicaid are taking advantage of preventive care and nutritional counseling, thus placing lesser value on sugar-sweetened drinks and increasing purchases of low-calorie non-alcoholic beverages.
"Policymakers need to have this information," Boehm told UConnToday. "Not all states expanded Medicaid under the ACA, so if we have these results saying we see diet quality benefits, that may help push other states to join the expansion."
Steve Salkin is a managing editor for BenefitsPRO parent company ALM.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Steve Salkin
Steve Salkin, Esq. is the Editor-in-Chief of ALM's Law Journal Newsletters. He can be reached at [email protected].
