The research compared hospitalizations among those who had health plans with those who didn’t.
According to the results of a new study that are making insurance news headlines, people who have health coverage are far less likely to require hospitalization than those who are uninsured.
This data comes at a time when the Affordable Care Act is still trying to show it will be financially worthwhile.
The research performed a comparison between the hospitalizations of childless adults who had BadgerCare with those who are completely uninsured. What it determined was that those who had the health insurance coverage needed to use hospitals substantially less than those who were on the plans. As governments debate whether the federally funded Medicaid expansion is financially feasible and whether it will have any meaningful impact on improving public health, this insurance news helps to give hope to the future medical and financial wellbeing of Americans.
This type of insurance news is only one of many types of factors considered when deciding on state Medicaid expansion.
When the Supreme Court ruling gave the states their own right to decide whether they would be expanding their Medicaid programs as a part of the federal healthcare reforms, the insurance news was much broader than a single factor to be considered. Instead, there were many issues such as politics, cost, and data regarding whether or not providing this coverage would improve the health of the country’s poor in a measurable way.
It is precisely the type of data revealed in the insurance news from this study that was required by states to help to make their choices. This particular study was conducted by researchers from the UW-Madison as well as others. It indicates that when childless adults in low income brackets obtain coverage, it increases their potential for better health.
This research studied 9,000 residents of Milwaukee and made insurance news when it determined that once they were on the BadgerCare Core plan, there was a drop of 59 percent in hospitalizations in a single year. This research has now been published in the peer reviewed journal, Health Affairs.
