Harvard study: Medicaid expansion could be good for states’ health

As states are deciding whether to adopt the Medicaid expansion provided by the Affordable Care Act, a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health suggests that expansion can reduce deaths and improve overall health quality over time.

Researchers compared data from seven states—three states with expansion and four neighboring states without—to measure the impact of Medicaid’s reach on the low-income adults over a five-year period.

The states that employed Medicaid expansion saw a 6 percent drop in death rates, with the highest impacts being among older adults, minorities and the very poor.

The study is scheduled to be published in the September issue of New England Journal of Medicine.