July 10, 201711:39 AM ET
Is Medicaid the best health care possible?
A lot of people who use
it seem to think so.
A new study released by Harvard's Chan School of Public Health shows that people enrolled in Medicaid are overwhelmingly satisfied with their coverage and care.
A new study released by Harvard's Chan School of Public Health shows that people enrolled in Medicaid are overwhelmingly satisfied with their coverage and care.
The researchers looked at
survey data collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from
more than 270,000 people who were enrolled in Medicaid in 2013. They gave the
program an average rating of 7.9 out of 10, where 10 was considered "the
best health care possible." Nearly half of the respondents rated Medicaid
a 9 or 10.
"If nearly half the
people are giving it nearly a perfect score, that's pretty good,"
says Michael Barnett, a researcher in the Department of
Health Policy and Management at Harvard's Chan School. "There aren't a lot
of services that we get for anything, government or not, where you'd give it a
perfect score."
The study, published as a research letter in the July 10 issue
of JAMA Internal Medicine, also shows that 84 percent of Medicaid recipients
felt they were able to get all the medical care they needed in the last six
months. Only 3 percent said they could not get care because of long wait times
or because doctors would not accept their insurance.
The results applied
across the board to those in traditional Medicaid, Medicaid managed care plans
and among the elderly and disabled. The study did not include
people who got Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act expansion or people in nursing
homes.
The survey results come just as Republicans in the Senate are
debating a complete overhaul of the Medicaid program, and they counter some of
the major arguments for those changes.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has championed the Medicaid
overhaul, often argues that many doctors refuse to accept Medicaid patients.
"I mean, what good
is your coverage if you can't get a doctor?" he asked in a presentation to reporters in March.
Health and Human Services
Secretary Tom Price made a similar argument in testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee
last month.
"One-third of doctors in America do not accept new Medicaid
patients," he told the committee. His office didn't respond to a request
for comment on the new study.
Barnett, the study's author, says the new data is the first that
shows what Medicaid users think of the program.
"Part of what motivated this study is that there is a lot
of rhetoric and what we would call misinformation around 'What does Medicaid
do, how effective is it, and how satisfied are enrollees with their
coverage?'" he says. "This is the survey that really provides the
most reliable large scale information that we have to date, [with] over 270,000
enrollees, and they're largely satisfied."
The bill being considered by the Senate would slowly roll back the expansion
of Medicaid benefits to many poor, non-disabled adults, that happened as part
of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. And it would change Medicaid from an
open-ended program that pays for all the care beneficiaries need, to one that
offers states a set amount of money each year based on the number of people who
qualify for Medicaid in that state.
The analysis issued by
the Congressional Budget Office last month estimates
spending on Medicaid would be $770 billion less over ten years under the Senate
bill than under current law and that 15 million people would lose Medicaid coverage by
2026.
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