More Evidence That Medicaid Expansion Increases Emergency Department Use

The evidence that Medicaid expansion increases use of hospitals’ emergency departments is coming fast and thick. Hospital executives are longer afraid to admit it, and have given up the pretense that Medicaid increases timely, quality, primary care. Here’s one data point from Fort Smith, Arkansas:

Almost a year after the first health insurance enrollment under the Affordable Care Act, local hospitals Sparks Regional Medical Center and Mercy Fort Smith have seen an uptick in emergency room visits. Shelly Cordum, nursing chief executive for Sparks Regional Medical Center in Fort Smith, says the Sparks emergency department saw 6,700 patients in July. The trend is not expected to decline either. “The Medicaid expansion and the health care option certainly has spurred this influx, without a doubt,” Cordum said. “It’s people from all walks of life. They’re coming in with all different kinds of medical problems, and they enter the hospital through the ER because many don’t have a primary care physician and they are very sick.” (Fort Smith Times Record)

Also, the Colorado Hospital Association has issued a report comparing certain trends in states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare with states that did not. The most important take-away is how much Emergency Department visits increased in expansion states versus non-expansion states:

The average number of emergency department (ED) visits to hospitals in expansion states increased 5.6 percent from second-quarter 2013 to second-quarter 2014. This change was greater than expected from the variation over the last two years, and resulted in the highest number of average visits over that time. In comparison, hospitals in non-expansion states reported a 1.8 percent increase in Emergency Department visits between the second quarters of 2013 and 2014.

It is increasingly clear that Medicaid expansion does not increase access to primary care.

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For the pivotal alternative to Obamacare, please see the Independent Institute’s widely acclaimed book: Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis, by John C. Goodman.