Emergency Room Visits to Rise Under Obamacare: Report

Supporters of President Obama’s healthcare reform plan said one benefit would be a reduction in emergency room visits for nonemergency treatment — but the opposite will likely be the case, according to a new report.

The premise touted by proponents of the reform was that Americans who lack healthcare insurance and cannot afford to see a private physician often seek treatment at a hospital emergency room — which cannot turn them away — and then fail to pay their bill.

The thinking went that the 32 million to 34 million currently uninsured people would receive coverage and be able to obtain treatment from a private physician or clinic.

But John C. Goodman, president and CEO at the National Center for Policy Analysis, states: “More people are likely to turn to the emergency room for their healthcare and they are likely to do so more frequently under the new health reform legislation.”

He notes that about half of the newly insured will enroll in Medicaid, and Medicaid patients seek emergency room care more often than the uninsured.

The reason, Goodman suggests, is that Medicaid fees are so low that patients have trouble finding private physicians willing to see them, and find that emergency rooms are the only place where they can receive care.

Also, the reform plan makes no provision for creating more healthcare providers, so as the newly insured seek to increase their access to healthcare, many are likely to turn to emergency rooms when they cannot get care at a doctor’s office.

Goodman points to Massachusetts, which cut the number of uninsured in half by enrolling residents in Medicaid and private insurance plans offered in a health insurance exchange. But no steps were taken to increase the number of healthcare providers, and as a result, the wait to see a new doctor in Boston is twice as long as in any other U.S. city.

Goodman also notes: “The use of emergency rooms for nonemergency care in Massachusetts today is as great as or greater than it was before the state health reform was adopted.”