"More bad news for Obamacare and its proponents. A new study from Oregon" published in the journal Science found that expanded Medicaid coverage "increased-rather than decreased-both the number of folks crowding emergency rooms and" the number seeking emergency "care for conditions that clearly were not emergencies. Many . . . who supported the Affordable Care Act had predicted the opposite outcome," reported Scientific American. Obamacare subsidizes a vast expansion of Medicaid through billions more in government spending.
"Obamacare supporters, including the president himself, predicted that the Affordable Care Act would reduce the number of trips to expensive hospital emergency rooms, but as The New York Times reported on Friday, that may not be the case," notes CNS News. "An experiment in Oregon found that newly insured people went to the emergency room 'a good deal more often' than those without insurance." "Those who gained coverage made 40 percent more visits to the emergency room than their uninsured counterparts . . .The findings cast doubt on the hope that expanded insurance coverage will help rein in emergency room costs . . . And they go against one of the central arguments of the law's supporters, that extending insurance to large numbers of Americans would reduce emergency room use, and eventually save money."
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7 comments:
It was a standard argument that this way the ER's would be less crowded.
When things hit people's pocketbooks however is when politics falls apart.
They shall see.
My favorite phrase "A New Study"...
I go to the Salisbury Urgent Care Center.
Did the New Study, study whether there were alternative options to the ER available?
One would think that with the flood of newly insured, Urgent Care Centers would be popping up all over to capture those dollars.
They had 3 years to build them.
What we will get is virtual care centers in CVS and Walgreens.
Annie. Some Immediate Care Facilities do not accept Medicaid patients.
Anon 4:25 said, "Some Immediate Care Facilities do not accept Medicaid patients."
True, and most do not accept Medicare patients, either.
I understand that, the point is, they knew this was coming, they knew people had to go somewhere other than the ER.
They had 3 years to give them other options and did not.
So what do they expect?
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