Poorer Health of Surgery Patients on Medicaid May Alter Law’s Bottom Line

[Purveyor]

WASHINGTON — Surgery patients covered by Medicaid arrive at the hospital in worse health, experience more complications, stay longer and cost more than patients with private insurance, a new study has found.

The study, by researchers at the University of Michigan, may offer a preview of what to expect as millions of uninsured people qualify for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

Although Medicaid patients in the study were generally younger than the privately insured patients, they were twice as likely to smoke and had higher rates of conditions that made surgery riskier. Those conditions, which can arise from years of poor health habits, include diabetes, lung disease and blood vessel blockage.

The study, published this month in the journal JAMA Surgery, analyzed data on nearly 14,000 patients who had operations at 52 hospitals in Michigan from July 2012 to June 2013.

Dr. Darrell A. Campbell Jr., the chief medical officer of the University of Michigan Health System, who led the study, said: “The Medicaid patients were sicker, and they did not do as well following surgery. They stayed in the hospital longer, and that increases the cost.”

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/us/poorer-health-of-surgery-patients-on-medicaid-may-alter-laws-bottom-line.html?_r=0

[merrily]

1. And hospitals and doctors abusing Medicaid and neglecting patients proves Medicaid sucks.

"Cause you know them. They're just trying to show their love for women insert whichever word seems to fit patients. Yeah, that's it. They're just trying to show their love for patients by warehousing them longer while giving them inferior care. So, Medicaid bad. And, by extension, government programs that seek to help the poor bad.

You gotta admire that logic.

The bad, of course, is not the law, nor poorer patients, but the care providers and the politicians who will not stand up to them and their lobbies.

But, look at the language in the article.

Medicaid patients stayed longer and that increased costs. Not that the care providers discharged them later.

■ Medicaid patients “had more emergency operations and used 50 percent more hospital resources than patients with other kinds of insurance.”

Yeah, I've had surgery. I used exactly the amount of resources that the hospital and doctors lavished on me and my insurer.

[WhiteTara]

2. I think that as the length of time there is health care

the better the health of the poor. If you can see a doctor when you first get sick, you get well sooner.