Health

An Essential Guide To Idaho's Medicaid Program

In the world of social programs, Medicaid is one of the hardest to understand. It’s something of a catch-all program for low-income people, covering broad and divergent needs. Included are healthy children and adults with eligible dependent children, people with disabilities or special health needs, and the elderly. Eligibility is income-based and it varies according the category of qualification for the program.During the state’s 2011 fiscal year, more than three quarters of the funding allocated to the Department of Health and Welfare’s budget went to Medicaid. The program received about $1.55 billion in federal and state funding, with 74 percent of those dollars coming from the federal government.Enrollment in Idaho’s Medicaid program has grown substantially in recent years. The average monthly Medicaid enrollment was fairly stable between 2006 and 2008. It grew by about 3.5 percent. But in the last three years, the program’s enrollment has grown nearly 21 percent. Ballooning from about 185,000 in 2008 to 228,897 in 2012.

Study Finds Medicaid Expansion Increased ER Visits

Boise State Public Radio News | By Associated Press

Published January 2, 2014 at 1:52 PM MST

A new study has found that previously uninsured people who were given health coverage through Medicaid used the emergency room 40 percent more than others who weren't able to join the program.

The findings were published Thursday by the journal Science. They suggest that hospitals and health officials around the nation need to be prepared for an increase in emergency room trips as millions of Americans gain insurance this week under the federal health care law, many of them through Medicaid.

Researchers looked at 25,000 people in the Portland, Ore., metro area in a randomized, controlled experiment that allowed researchers to pinpoint Medicaid coverage as the cause of the higher use.

The study was done by researchers at Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Study Finds Medicaid Expansion Increased ER Visits

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