Does Health Coverage Make People Healthier?
Oregon. At it again.
A landmark study released this morning on a major health policy experiment in Oregon provides some hint at what the answer to these questions might be if the ACA becomes a reality. A consortium of researchers from MIT, Harvard, and the state of Oregon has studied the impact of randomly assigning Medicaid insurance to poor Oregonians in 2008 as part of an expansion of the state’s health coverage. They found that Medicaid’s impact on health, happiness, and general well-being is enormous, and delivered at relatively low cost: Low-income Oregonians whose names were selected by lottery to apply for Medicaid availed themselves of more treatment and preventive care than those who remained excluded from government health insurance. After a year with insurance, the Medicaid lottery winners were happier, healthier, and under less financial strain.
