Expanding eligibility for Medicaid in the states was associated with reductions in the share (6.2%) and the population rate (7.85 per 10,000) of surgical discharges among the uninsured in expansion versus nonexpansion states, according to researchers from the Duke University Medical Center and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Published in Health Affairs,the research suggested that in 2019 alone, adoption of Medicaid expansion in nonexpansion states could have prevented more than 50,000 incidences of catastrophic financial burden for uninsured patients needing surgery, the authors wrote.
