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Hospitals saved millions of dollars under medicaid expansion

Scott & White Healthcare
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https://flic.kr/p/btAvAw

New research shows hospitals saved millions of dollars under Medicaid expansion through the Affordable Care Act.

The study shows the cost of uncompensated care in the state, or hospital bills that could not be paid for, dropped from 903 million in 2013 to 394 million in 2015. That’s a decrease of 56%.

Marianne Udow-Phillips is the Director of the Center for Healthcare Research and Transformation, which conducted the study. She said before the ACA, roughly one million people in Michigan were uninsured.

“Most of those people could not afford the care that they received in the hospital. Many of them went to the hospital for emergency purposes but didn’t have the funds to pay for that care. That is considered charity care or uncompensated care by the hospital.”

Udow-Phillips said uncompensated care costs fall to either hospitals or insured Michiganders.

“So for example some commercial insurers, like Blue Cross plans, pay some portion of bad debts that hospitals experience. Because otherwise hospitals would have great difficulty continuing to operate. So that shifts the cost of uncompensated care to the rest of us who have health insurance.”

In states that didn’t expand medicaid the percentage of uncompensated care increased for hospitals.

Udow-Phillips said nationwide the cost of uncompensated care dropped by 23 percent..

“Michigan was the state that had the largest relative decline in uncompensated care costs. That’s because we’ve done a great job in our state in getting people coverage under Healthy Michigan and frankly getting people coverage in the health insurance marketplace with individual coverage.”

Udow-Phillips said  it’s in the best interest of both hospitals and insured patients to see that as many people as possible have health insurance