Medicaid Registration Reduces Disease-Related Deaths

A University of Michigan study on the link between expanded coverage of Medicaid and mortality rates reveals that a sizeable number of people are still alive because of this coverage.

The study on the relationship between Medicaid enrollment and mortality reveals a decrease of 0.13 percentage points in annual mortality, a reduction of 9.3% compared to the average for the year. 39, sample badociated with the expansion of Medicaid. This effect results from a reduction in the number of deaths related to the disease and increases with time.

In 2014, the Affordable Care Act extended eligibility to the Medicaid program to include adults in all families with incomes below 138% of the federal poverty line. That year, 29 states expanded coverage and seven more in the coming years.

"Our estimates suggest that about 15,600 additional deaths would have been avoided if the extensions provided for by the Affordable Care Act had been adopted nationally, as originally planned," said Sarah Miller, lead author of the study, badistant professor in economics and public policy at the Ross School of Business in UM. . "This highlights a permanent cost for non-adoption that should be relevant to both state policy makers and their constituents."

The study appeared in the National Bureau of Economic Research Monday. Miller's co-authors are Sean Altekruse of the National Institutes of Health, Norman Johnson of the US Census Bureau, and Laura Wherry of the University of California at Los Angeles.

"There is strong evidence that Medicaid is increasing the uptake of health care, including well-established and effective types of care, such as prescription drugs and screening, as well as early detection of treatment-responsive cancers. "said Miller.

"Given this, it may seem obvious that Medicaid would improve objective measures of health."

Although it was difficult to find data that allowed researchers to demonstrate these results, Miller and his coauthors were able to use data from large-scale federal surveys related to administrative records of mortality. Using this, they were able to establish that Medicaid expansions significantly reduced mortality rates among those who would benefit the most.

About 3.7 million low-income people have been eligible for Medicaid in the growing states. The results in this group indicate that approximately 4,800 fewer deaths occur each year, equivalent to 19,200 deaths averted between 2014 and 2017.

Medicaid is the largest provider of health insurance for low-income people in the United States. It covers 72 million people and represents more than $ 500 billion in government spending each year.