At a cost of nearly $100 billion a year, Obamacare adds 16 million people to the rolls of Medicaid. The President and his allies are most proud of this aspect of the new law, as it helps to fulfill a long-held progressive goal of providing government-funded health insurance to all Americans.
Except that Medicaid is broken. Medicaid so severely underpays doctors—reimbursing them at 72 percent of already-stingy Medicare rates—that many physicians refuse to see Medicaid patients. Medicaid patients, in turn, fill up emergency rooms, where they delay the care of the seriously injured.
Now comes word, via a large study by the University of Virginia (h/t Joseph Colletti), that surgical patients on Medicaid are 13% more likely to die than those with no insurance at all, and 97% more likely to die than those with private insurance.
The Virginia group evaluated 893,658 major surgical operations from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample database from 2003 to 2007. They divided the patients up by the type of insurance—private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and uninsured—and adjusted the database in order to control for age, gender, income, geographic region, operation, and comorbid conditions (having 2 or more diseases simultaneously). That way, they could correct for the obvious differences in the patient populations (for example, older and poorer patients being more likely to have ill health).
They then examined three measurements of surgical outcome quality: the rate of in-hospital mortality; average length of stay in the hospital (longer stays in the hospital are a marker of poorer outcomes); and total costs.
The in-hospital death rate for surgical patients with private insurance was 1.3%. Medicare, uninsured, and Medicaid patients were 54%, 74%, and 97% more likely to die than those with private insurance.
Outcome Private Medicare Uninsured MedcaidIn-Hospital Mortality (vs. Private Insurance) 1.00 1.54 1.74 1.97Length of Stay (days) 7.38 8.77 7.01 10.49Total Costs ($) $63,057 $69,408 $65,667 $79,140
The average length of stay in the hospital was 7.38 days for those with private insurance; on an adjusted basis, those with Medicare stayed 19% longer; the uninsured stayed 5% shorter; and those with Medicaid stayed 42% longer.
Total costs per patient were $63,057 for private insurance; Medicare patients cost 10% more; uninsured patients 4% more; and Medicaid patients 26% more.
In summary: Medicaid patients were almost twice as likely to die as those with private insurance; their hospital stays were 42% longer, and cost 26% more. Compared to those without health insurance, Medicaid patients were 13% more likely to die, stayed in the hospital for 50% longer, and cost 20% more. It is hard to see how this problem doesn’t get significantly worse when Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid is fully phased in.
Remember these statistics the next time you see a study claiming that the quality of American health care is no better than that of Europe. Such studies rarely separate patients with Medicaid and Medicare from those with private insurance.
The Virginia study reminds us that the true cost of government health care is not its impact on the budget, but its impact on the lives and health of every American. We can only hope that our representatives in Washington begin to understand this.
All I can find is an abstract. Is there a full study? There are several obvious issues which I hope they addressed.
ReplyDelete"At a cost of nearly $100 billion a year, Obamacare adds 16 million people to the rolls of Medicaid."
Not consistent with numbers I have seen. Where does this come from?
Steve
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteReportedly, the full study is in press in the Annals of Surgery. Out of curiosity, what obvious issues are you concerned about other than controlling for age, income, etc.?
The Congressional Budget Office projects that, in 2019, due to PPACA, 16 million more people will be on Medicaid than would have been if prior law had remained in force, and that the additional cost in that year would be $97 billion.
These numbers are out of context. When an uninsured person goes for a surgery, he/she obviously hasn't had care needed prior to the operation which has inexorability led him/her to the point where such action is necessary. Therefore, his/her condition is far worse than someone with a private insurance who's had prevention or other necessary cares prior to the surgery which dramatically alters the outcome. Moreover, when someone who hasn't had care for so long gets to this point, his/her condition is in far dire condition which makes the treatment, in this case surgery, far more expensive and length of the care longer. So it all makes perfect sense.
ReplyDeleteThe statistics that says that the quality of American health care is no better than that of Europe are thinkable.
ReplyDeleteThe study makes 100% sense to me. Whenever government puts a price tag on healthcare, problems it for free, they create an unlimited demand. There's a very finite supply of you doctors that will see Medicaid patients. It's no wonder they die sooner. rationing of healthcare is deadly: http://www.cobrahealth.com/Obamacare-rationing.html
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ReplyDeleteIt is clear that this study does not take into account that those with Medicaid are those in poverty and/or have a significant disability. Those variables that attribute to higher mortality rate which could include poorer nutrition, lack of education on life style choice, cognitive disabilities to make good choices, lack of education on how to manage their personal health. This study does not address any of those issues as variables and in my opinion is invalidates the results as being fact. Has the study been validated to include diviations on the results?
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