Hospitals in states that have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act are seeing fewer uninsured patients, according to a new study released Thursday.
The Kaiser Family Foundation Study found that hospital visits from the uninsured in such states declined by 32 percent in 2014 compared to 2013. States that did not expand Medicaid only saw a 4-percent decline.
Kaiser analyzed data from Ascension Health, a non-profit Catholic healthcare system with 131 acute-care hospitals in 16 states and District of Columbia. Seven of those states and the nation’s capital have expanded Medicaid coverage. Nine have not.
As expected, Medicaid hospitals are getting more revenue from the federal government. Ascension hospitals in expansion states got an 8 percent boost from Medicaid, compared to a 9-percent decline in states that didn’t expand the program.
However, Medicaid hospitals saw a vast decrease — 63 percent — in revenue from self-pay in 2014 compared to 2013. Non-expansion states saw a 2-percent increase in visits where the patient paid for his or her own treatment.
Hospitals in expansion states also saw a 40-percent decline in the number of charity cases, compared to only a 6-percent decline in non-expansion states, according to the study.
“Overall, hospitals in Medicaid expansion states saw increased Medicaid discharges, increased Medicaid revenue, and decreased cost of care for the poor, while hospitals in non-expansion states saw a very small increase in Medicaid discharges, a decline in Medicaid revenue and a growth in cost of care to the poor,” the study concluded.
