Another Problem Obamacare Won't Solve: Health Costs

[koshergrl]

"Does giving people Medicaid drive ER usage up, or down?
The answer, it turns out, is “up.” People who got access to Medicaid used doctors more than people who didn’t. But they also used the ER more. And contrary to the theory that Medicaid might divert people from ERs to primary care physicians, the big increases actually came from the somewhat-less urgent problems that we were hoping to divert from ERs:

Medicaid increases use for visits classified as “non-emergent,” “primary care treatable,” and “emergent, preventable.” We find no statistically significant change in use of visits classified as “emergent, not preventable.”

Medicaid increases outpatient emergency department visits (visits that did not result in a hospital admission). We find no statistically significant increase in emergency department visits that did result in a hospital admission.​

It’s not surprising that this is where the increase comes from -- if you’re in a car wreck or your arm has been cut off, you go to the ER whether or not you have insurance. But if it’s a bad case of strep, you might decide to tough it out. What is surprising ... or at least interesting ... is that the visits increased."

Another Problem Obamacare Won't Solve: Health Costs - Bloomberg