While Medicaid is a public health insurance program designed to help the most vulnerable populations, it generally fails to meet its good intentions. Thus, reforming the current system ranks a higher priority.
Avik Roy, editor and principal author of Forbes’ Apothecary, just released Transcending Obamacare, a lengthy proposal on how states can realistically pivot towards decentralized health care delivery initiatives that ultimately reduces the number of uninsured and increases access to care – including those eligible for Medicaid.
The report cites numerous Medicaid studies – most of which will likely raise some eyebrows. See examples below, and click here to read more case study results.
- A landmark study published in the New England Journal of Medicine compared health outcomes for Oregon residents who had won a lottery to enroll in that state’s Medicaid program with demographically similar residents who had lost the lottery and remained uninsured. After following these individuals for two years, the authors found that Medicaid “generated no significant improvement in measured physical outcomes” such as mortality, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.”
- A University of Pennsylvania study published in Cancer found that, in patients undergoing surgery for colon cancer, the mortality rate was 2.8 percent for Medicaid patients, 2.2 percent for uninsured patients, and 0.9 percent for those with private insurance. The rate of surgical complications was highest for Medicaid, at 26.7 percent, as compared with 24.5 percent for the uninsured and 21.2 percent for the privately insured.
