Dr. Martha Perez examines Maria Lebron in a room at the Community Health of South Florida, Doris Ison Health Center on February 21, 2013 in Miami, Florida. ; Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
New results released from the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment — a study of people who randomly received healthcare coverage via lottery in 2008 — has put into question the Obama administration’s assertion that expanded Medicaid would lower emergency room visits.
The study, which is considered to be a gold-standard for its incorporation of a large random sample, shows that there is an almost 40 percent relative increase in emergency room use for those newly receiving expanded Medicaid. Cailfornia, which has already experimented with expanded coverage, witnessed a similar bump in usage, but also featured a modest decline after a period.
Will California’s case be a model for the country? Will emergency rooms be able to handle a surge resulting from expanded Medicaid? Will the study weaken the Obama administration’s credibility in regards to claims about the already-troubled healthcare system? Or are these simply the growing pains of the ACA?
Guests:
Katherine Baicker, PhD, Professor of Health Economics at the Harvard School of Public Health and co-author of “Medicaid Increases Emergency-Department Use: Evidence from Oregon's Health Insurance Experiment.”
Dylan Roby, Director of Health Economics and Evaluation Research at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research
Yevgeniy Feyman, Fellow at the Center for Medical Progress at the Manhattan Institute