"Free" medical care does not improve health

[Quantum Windbag]

The largest controlled study of Medicaid ever shows no improvement in health, no reduction in ER visits, and more use of expensive services.

In other words, it doesn't work.

This is huge, and stunning, even for critics of Medicaid: A randomized-controlled study published in the New England Journal of Medicine by a group of nation's top health policy scholars has found that Medicaid has no measurable effect on any of the objectively measured physical health outcomes the study examined. In its second-year results, the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, which randomly assigned Medicaid to 10,000 people in Oregon, and compared them with a randomly selected control group, found that those who got Medicaid did not on average have healthier blood pressure, cholesterol levels, or diabetic blood pressure control than those who did not get Medicaid. Those with Medicaid did see some reduction in out of pocket health expenses. They were also less likely to be diagnosed with depression.
The Medicaid recipients also ended up utilizing a lot more health care—care that has to be paid for—than those who didn't get coverage. But they didn't use the emergency room any less than the control group.

More Bad News for Obamacare: Study Finds Medicaid Has No Effect on Measured Health Outcomes - Hit & Run : Reason.com