Doctor appointment availability went up after Michigan Medicaid expansion

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-07/uomh-dmm071715.php

Public Release: 22-Jul-2015
University of Michigan Health System

Getting access to health insurance, and getting access to a doctor, are two very different things.

But a new University of Michigan study suggests that the two have gone hand-in-hand in the state of Michigan, despite a rapid influx of hundreds of thousands of newly insured people under the state's expansion of Medicaid.

In fact, the research shows that the availability of primary care appointments actually improved for people with Medicaid in the first months after the state launched the Healthy Michigan Plan under the Affordable Care Act.

In just those few months, more than 350,000 people -- one-third of the previously uninsured working-age adults in the state -- joined the plan.

•••••