What was the impact of some states expanding Medicaid (ACA) and States not expanding? Does it matter?

Abstract

Introduction:States that did expand Medicaid have reported an increase in access to healthcare, improved health outcomes and financial security, encouraged employment and education gains, and more. However, there are still states unwilling to expand Medicaid. The objective of this paper is to investigate if (1) Louisiana which has implemented Medicaid expansion will have higher rates of Black adults being told by a doctor that they are diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. (2) Georgia which did not expand its Medicaid will have an overall lower rate of access to care due to cost compared to states that did expand. Methods: Secondary quantitative data is collected from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Family Foundation. The data is then analyzed through R (v.4.0.2) utilizing a Welch two-sample t-test. Results: The first Welch t-test had a p-value of 0.07105. Since this p-value is lower than the significance level of 0.05, we do not reject the null hypothesis. The second Welch t-test had a p-value of 0.263. Since this p-value is higher than the significance level of 0.05, we reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis as true. Conclusion: Although there was no strong correlation on whether or not cardiovascular decreased due to Medicaid expansion within the Black population. However, medicaid expansion does matter due to its ability to increase the rate of healthcare access and screening. As seen from the data collected, there are many other factors that influence the data, but Louisiana has had the largest increase in cardiovascular disease diagnosis since it expanded Medicaid compared to Georgia whose trending slowly.