Medicaid - Public Health Impacts

Public Health Impacts

A 2011 paper by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Harvard School of Public Health, “The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment: Evidence from the First Year,” use Oregon’s 2008 decision to hold a randomized lottery for the provision of Medicaid insurance in order to measure the impact of health insurance on an individual’s health and well-being. The study examined the outcomes of the 10,000 lower-income people eligible for Medicare who were chosen by this randomized system, which helped eliminate potential bias in the data produced. The study's authors caution that the survey sample is relatively small and "estimates are therefore difficult to extrapolate to the likely effects of much larger health insurance expansions, in which there may well be supply side responses from the health care sector." Nevertheless, the study finds evidence that: 1) Hospital use increased by 30% for those with insurance, with the length of hospital stays increasing by 30% and the number of procedures increasing by 45% for the population with insurance; 2) Medicaid recipients proved more likely to seek preventive care. Women were 60% more likely to have mammograms, and recipients overall were 20% more likely to have their cholesterol checked; 3) In terms of self-reported health outcomes, having insurance was associated with an increased probability of reporting one’s health as “good,” “very good,” or “excellent” — overall, about 25% higher than the average; 4) Those with insurance were about 10% less likely to report a diagnosis of depression.