CHICAGO, July 22 (Xinhua) -- A study of the University of Michigan (UM) on the connection between expanded Medicaid coverage and mortality rates finds that a sizeable number of people are alive today because of the coverage.
Using large-scale federal survey data that has been linked to administrative records on mortality, the study on the relationship between Medicaid enrollment and mortality finds a 0.13 percentage point decline in annual mortality, a 9.3-percent reduction over the sample mean, associated with Medicaid expansion. The effect is driven by a reduction in disease-related deaths and grows over time.
In 2014, the Affordable Care Act expanded eligibility for the Medicaid program to include adults in all families with incomes under 138 percent of the federal poverty level. That year, 29 states expanded coverage with seven more adding in over the next few years.
About 3.7 million low-income people gained Medicaid eligibility in expansion states. In this group, the results indicate that roughly 4,800 fewer deaths occur annually, equating to 19,200 deaths averted between 2014 and 2017.
"Our estimates suggest that approximately 15,600 additional deaths would have been averted had the Affordable Care Act expansions been adopted nationwide as originally intended," said the study's lead author Sarah Miller, assistant professor of business economics and public policy at UM's Ross School of Business.
Medicaid is the largest health insurance provider for low-income individuals in the United States. It covers 72 million people and represents more than 500 billion U.S. dollars in government spending each year.
The study was published in the National Bureau of Economic Research on Monday.
