Study: ObamaCare Medicaid Expansion Increases Emergency Room Visits

The Obama administration claimed the ObamaCare medicaid expansion would reduce expensive emergency room visits, but a new study has found the complete opposite is true.

Using Oregon’s 2008 Medicaid expansion as a test case, researchers in a Harvard University study found, “that patients newly covered by Medicaid increased their emergency room visits by 40 percent.”

Many of the visits were for primary care services, which President Obama she the Democrats who supported the law said the ObamaCare medicaid expansion would cut down on. The study stated:

In 2008, Oregon initiated a limited expansion of a Medicaid program for uninsured, low-income adults, drawing names from a waiting list by lottery. This lottery created a rare opportunity to study the effects of Medicaid coverage using a randomized controlled design. Using the randomization provided by the lottery and emergency-department records from Portland-area hospitals, we study the emergency-department use of about 25,000 lottery participants over approximately 18 months after the lottery. We find that Medicaid coverage significantly increases overall emergency use by 0.41 visits per person, or 40 percent relative to an average of 1.02 visits per person in the control group. We find increases in emergency-department visits across a broad range of types of visits, conditions, and subgroups, including increases in visits for conditions that may be most readily treatable in primary care settings.

The study may serve as another warning sign for things to come, as a PeoplesPunditDaily.com study showed the number of Medicaid enrollments represents the vast majority of new ObamaCare signups. The administration touted a surge of enrollment in December, but has refused to provide the number of young and healthy vs. sick and old, which is a ratio that has the power to sink or keep the entire program afloat.

At last count, 25 states and Washington, D.C. opted to for the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion, and at least 9 refused to implement the program.