The Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act promised to open doors to healthcare for millions, but could it also be opening the floodgates to antibiotic overuse? In the United States, over 200 million antibiotic prescriptions are filled annually, fueling a dangerous rise in antibiotic-resistant infections that claim more than 35,000 lives each year. My… Read more »
Tag: Medicaid
Expanding Medicaid’s Mental Health Care: State Waivers Appear to Have Different Effects
State waivers aimed at expanding mental health care for Medicaid beneficiaries have been largely successful in doing so. However, my research finds that state waivers aimed at removing the Institutions for Mental Diseases Exclusion appear to have different effects by state. Mental illnesses are more prevalent among Medicaid enrollees, so it is important that Medicaid… Read more »
Hospitals Do Not Reduce the Dollar Amount of Uncompensated Care They Provide Upon Joining Health Systems
Every year, hundreds of diabetic patients in the United States die because they were not able to afford their daily shots of life-sustaining insulin and chose to, out of sheer desperation, ration their insulin prescription so that it lasted for as many days as they could stretch it. For such individuals, uncompensated care that hospitals… Read more »
Profit vs. Patient Care: How can we keep pharmaceutical companies accountable?
The United States is notorious for its extravagant spending on healthcare and the climbing costs of prescription drugs. In what seems to be a time of unjustifiable pharmaceutical price spikes, what is keeping pharmaceutical companies accountable? The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most profitable sectors in the U.S., partly due to the minimal regulations… Read more »