June 29, 2016
Expanding access to healthcare insurance is intended to protect more people from crushing medical debt, but does making it easier to see a doctor improve their health?
Researchers have been comparing early data from states that expanded Medicaid, set up their own healthcare exchanges or defaulted to federal exchanges, to states that declined to expand Medicaid coverage under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA, ‘Obamacare’).
“There was more diagnosis of chronic health conditions such as diabetes and high cholesterol, suggesting that increased insurance coverage enables people to get screened for chronic diseases.” says study coauthor and IHPI member Sarah Miller.
“Fifty-eight percent of people queried said that they had visited a general physician in the past year. That jumped to 68%, after the ACA, a significant increase,” says Miller. “This was really only the very early first-year effect. I see this as the first step in having actual health improvements.”