Algrain, HalaCardosa, ElizabethDesai, ShekhaFong, EugeneRingoir, TanguyAshqar, Huthaifa2024-12-112024-12-112024-11-05https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2411.03140http://hdl.handle.net/11603/37068The Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010, expanding Medicaid and improving access to care for millions of low-income Americans. Fewer uninsured individuals reduced the cost of uncompensated care, consequently improving the financial health of hospitals. We hypothesize that this amelioration in hospital finances resulted in a marked improvement of quality measures in states that chose to expand Medicaid. To our knowledge, the impact of Medicaid expansion on the Medicare population has not been investigated. Using a difference-in-difference analysis, we compare readmission rates for four measures from the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program: acute myocardial infarction, pneumonia, heart failure, and coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Our analysis provides evidence that between 2013 and 2021 expansion states improved hospital quality relative to non-expansion states as it relates to acute myocardial infarction readmissions (p = 0.015) and coronary artery bypass graft surgery readmissions (p = 0.039). Our analysis provides some evidence that expanding Medicaid improved hospital quality, as measured by a reduction in readmission rates. Using visualizations, we provide some evidence that hospital quality improved for the other two measures as well. We believe that a refinement of our estimation method and an improved dataset will increase our chances of finding significant results for these two other measures.24 pagesen-USAttribution 4.0 International CC BY 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Economics - General EconomicsComputer Science - Computers and SocietyQuantitative Finance - EconomicsText