Our quote of the day comes from health policy expert John Goodman writing in the Wall Street Journal last week:

Having health insurance isn’t the same as having healthcare. While ObamaCare (including the Medicaid expansion) has helped cut the number of uninsured people in the U.S. nearly in half, all that spending has resulted in very little benefit–including for enrollees.

Medicaid enrollees actually place a low value on enrollment. Low-income adults value their Medicaid coverage at about 20 to 50 cents on the dollar of what their plans actually cost the government.

Medicaid also doesn’t seem to make much difference to enrollees’ health. The most rigorous study of the matter was the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment–a one-of-a-kind randomized controlled trial. Researchers selected Medicaid enrollees by lottery. After two years, researchers compared the medical conditions of those on Medicaid and those not on it. Those who had enrolled had less financial stress and were less likely to be depressed, but there was no significant improvement in their physical health.