The research, part of an effort among public health experts to understand the long-term effects of Medicaid on the American poor, is revealed at a time when Republicans are considering making significant changes to the program.
Here are seven findings from the report, as reported by The Washington Post.
1. The federal government has recovered much of the original cost of covering poor families when the program was first implemented because covered children have grown up to pay more in taxes and depend less on welfare and other public benefits programs than they would if they hadn’t received Medicaid coverage as children, according to the report.
2. Before President Lyndon B. Johnson created Medicaid in 1965, few poor families had health insurance. A 1963 survey cited in the report shows fewer than half of poor children had visited a physician in the past year.
3. When Medicaid was created, families were automatically eligible for the program if they had been receiving money from the old welfare system. While some states had lax requirements for welfare beneficiaries, others were stricter. As a result, poor children in some states were more likely to gain healthcare coverage under Medicaid than others. This disparity allowed the study authors to estimate the effects of Medicaid on children by comparing mortality data for each state.
4. Later data suggests Medicaid saved about 345,000 lives between 1980 and 1999, according to the report. Using census data through 2014, the study found Medicaid access for children increased their earnings as adults, decreased their reliance on disability insurance and other welfare programs.
5. Medicaid has had an annual return on investment of at least 2 percent, according to the paper.
6. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to repeal the ACA, which would likely cut nearly 13 million people’s eligibility to receive Medicaid benefits, according to projections from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, The Washington Post reported.
7. In addition to an ACA repeal, Republican legislators have discussed major reforms for Medicaid, including charging recipients premiums or deductibles to discourage them from seeking unnecessary medical treatment, or requiring them to hold a job to receive insurance.
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