The Hill: “Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare is giving a lift to hospitals’ finances, a new study from the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation finds.”
“The study finds hospitals’ charity care costs fell by 40 percent in states that expanded Medicaid, compared to just 6 percent in states that did not. As more people gained coverage through Medicaid, the need for charity care fell.”
Kaiser Family Foundation’s study examined the the early experiences with the ACA by Ascension Health, the delivery subsidiary of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health system.
KFF: “Ascension hospitals in expansion states saw an increase (8.2 percent) in Medicaid revenue from 2013 to 2014 and a 63.2 percent decrease in revenue from self-pay. Hospitals in non-expansion states actually saw a 9.4 percent decline in Medicaid revenue over the same period and a slight increase (2.6 percent) in revenue from self-pay. Growth in Medicaid revenue from outpatient care outpaced increases in inpatient revenue in expansion states, suggesting that these hospitals experienced greater increases in demand for outpatient care from new Medicaid patients compared to inpatient care.”