http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelcannon/2014/01/02/oregon-study-exposes-another-obamacare-falsehood-rather-than-reduce-unnecessary-er-use-medicaid-increases-it/Oregon Study Exposes Another ObamaCare Falsehood: Rather Than Reduce Unnecessary ER Use, Medicaid Increases It
[O]ne of the areas where we can potentially see some saving is a lot of those patients are being seen in the emergency room anyway, and if we are increasing prevention, if we are increasing wellness programs, we’re reducing the amount of emergency room care…
President Barack Obama, June 25, 2009
[T]hose of us with health insurance are also paying a hidden and growing tax for those without it — about $1,000 per year that pays for somebody else’s emergency room and charitable care…If there are affordable options and people still don’t sign up for health insurance, it means we pay for these people’s expensive emergency room visits.
- President Barack Obama, September 9, 2009
The final bill [will] make sure that people are getting the care they need and the checkups they need and the screenings they need before they get sick — which will save all of us money and reduce pressures on emergency rooms all across the country.
- President Barack Obama, December 15, 2009
You can’t get those savings if those people are still going to the emergency room.
- President Barack Obama, March 3, 2010
[P]eople are no longer going to the emergency room and they now have good health care, they’re now getting preventive care.
- President Barack Obama, September 24, 2013
We can now add another falsehood to the pile. A landmark study called the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment has found that contrary to the president’s assurances (see above), expanding health insurance to low-income households does not decrease their use of emergency rooms. Results from that experiment, published today in the journal Science, show expanding Medicaid to cover these households instead increases their emergency-room use by a sizable 40 percent.
The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment is the gold standard among studies on the effects of health insurance.
the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment researchers found that Medicaid increased the use of preventive and primary-care services, but emergency-room use rose as well.
When Medicaid made health care “free” these households, they made an additional 40 visits over that period — a 40-percent increase.
“Emergency department use increases even in classes of visits that might be most substitutable for other outpatient care,”
“such as those during standard hours (on-hours) and those for ‘non-emergent’ and ‘primary care treatable’ conditions.”
So if ObamaCare enrolls all 3.9 million individuals that it has so far identified as being eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP, the law could increase — not reduce — ER spending by something on the order of half a billion dollars per year. If all 50 states had implemented the law’s Medicaid expansion, the additional ER spending might have hit $1 billion per year.
And it’s not like the Obama administration can point to a whole lot of benefit for all that additional ER spending (and preventive-care spending, and primary-care spending, and…). as it did not produce statistically significant improvements in several different measures of physical health.”
"The finding that Medicaid increases emergency-room use deals another blow to the credibility of ObamaCare supporters, from President Obama all the way down."
and for you folk that say Obama wasn't qualified for any job.. that's not true, he would have made an excellent used car salesman..
"and if you buy that little AMC hornet over there with EZ monthly payments, I can see you saving at least $2500 a year in upkeep over that new expensive Cadillac you are trading in.. .. "