According to Community Health Systems CFO Larry Cash, the Obamacare Medicaid expansion has already significantly reduced the number of people walking into public hospitals without insurance.
During a call with investors on Wednesday, Community Health Systems CFO Larry Cash claimed that the company has already seen a decrease in self-pay admissions in the states that have expanded their Medicaid programs and predicted that the law would lower those kind of admissions from 8 percent to 4 percent over a three-year period. The CEOs of LifePoint Hospitals and HCA reported similar experiences: in states that expanded their Medicaid programs, Medicaid admissions grew, while the number of uninsured admissions declined at faster rates than in states that have yet to comply with the Medicaid provisions of the health care law.
We already know that refusing to expand Medicaid could lead to thousands of preventable deaths each year in states that refuse to expand. Combined with the economic losses, it’s entirely justifiable to say that refusing to expand Medicaid is ethically repugnant if not criminal.