In several states, Medicaid expansion remains in limbo as time runs short, By Sandhya Somashekhar, May 2, 2013, Washington Post: “In the closing days of their legislative sessions, lawmakers in more than a dozen states are struggling with whether to expand Medicaid under the federal health-care law, with many of them leaning against participating in a program that is key to President Obama’s aim of extending coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans. Twenty states and the District of Columbia have signed on to the expansion, and 14 are planning to decline. But 16 remain in limbo as lawmakers clash in the final days and weeks of the legislative calendar, when many must come to a decision in time for the provision to kick in next year…”
Day: May 2, 2013
Oregon Health Study
- Medicaid access increases use of care, study finds, By Annie Lowrey, May 1, 2013, New York Times: “Come January, millions of low-income adults will gain health insurance coverage through Medicaid in one of the farthest-reaching provisions of the Obama health care law. How will that change their finances, spending habits, use of available medical services and — most important — their health? New results from a landmark study, released on Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, go a long way toward answering those questions. The study, called the Oregon Health Study, compares thousands of low-income people in Oregon who received access to Medicaid with an identical population that did not…”
- Medicaid has mixed record on improving health for poor, study says, By Noam N. Levey, May 1, 2013, Los Angeles Times: “As state leaders debate whether to expand their Medicaid programs next year under President Obama’s healthcare law, new research suggests the government insurance plan for the poor has only a mixed record of improving health. Medicaid beneficiaries are less likely than the uninsured to have catastrophic medical expenses and significantly less likely to suffer from depression, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found…”
- Medicaid improved mental health for uninsured, By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar (AP), May 1, 2013, Chicago Sun-Times: “If you’re uninsured, getting on Medicaid clearly improves your mental health, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference in physical conditions such as high blood pressure. The counterintuitive findings by researchers at Harvard and MIT, from an experiment involving low-income, able-bodied Oregonians, appear in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine. The study offers a twist for states weighing a major Medicaid expansion under President Barack Obama’s health care law, to serve a similar population of adults around the country…”
Unemployment Benefits Fraud
$3.3 billion lost in unemployment fraud, study says, By Mark Koba, May 1, 2013, USA Today: “Unemployment fraud is costing the government billions of dollars in paid benefits to people who are still working, no longer alive or are behind bars, according to a report. A study by the St. Louis Federal Reserve released last week found that of the $108 billion paid out in unemployment benefits in 2011, some $3.3 billion was paid out dishonestly The largest share of the fraud payments — $2.2 billion — went to people who were still working…”