The Homa Files

Punchline: If universal coverage makes appointments harder to get (and it will !), emergency room use may increase. That’s called an unintended consequence.

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Excerpted from Newsweek: The Illusion of ‘Reform, March 15, 2010

How often have you heard the emergency-room argument?

The uninsured, it’s said, use emergency rooms for primary care. That’s expensive and ineffective. Once they’re insured, they’ll have regular doctors. Care will improve; costs will decline. Everyone wins.

Great argument.

Unfortunately, it’s untrue.

A study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that the insured account for 83 percent of emergency room visits, reflecting their share of the population.

After Massachusetts adopted universal insurance, emergency room use remained higher than the national average, reports an Urban Institute study.

More than two-fifths of visits represented non-emergencies.

People said it was “more convenient” to go to the emergency room or they couldn’t “get (a doctor’s) appointment as soon as needed.”

If universal coverage makes appointments harder to get, emergency room use may increase.

Full article:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/15/obamas_health_proposal_is_the_illusion_of_reform.html

This entry was posted on March 16, 2010 at 7:59 am and is filed under Health Care / Medical Insurance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.