https://www.nber.org/papers/w26081.pdf Medicaid and Mortality: New Evidence from Linked Survey and Administrative Data We use large-scale federal survey data linked to administrative death records to investigate the relationship between Medicaid enrollment and mortality. Our analysis compares changes in mortality for near-elderly adults in states with and without Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions. We identify adults most likely to benefit using survey information on socioeconomic and citizenship status, and public program participation. We find a 0.13 percentage point decline in annual mortality, a 9.3 percent reduction over the sample mean, associated with Medicaid expansion for this population. The effect is driven by a reduction in disease-related deaths and grows over time. We find no evidence of differential pre-treatment trends in outcomes and no effects among placebo groups. Our analysis provides new evidence that Medicaid coverage reduces mortality rates among low-income adults. Our estimates suggest that approximately 15,600 deaths would have been averted had the ACA expansions been adopted nationwide as originally intended by the ACA. There is robust evidence that Medicaid increases the use of health care, including types of care that are well-established as efficacious such as prescription drugs and screening and early detection of cancers that are responsive to treatment. Given this, it may seem obvious that Medicaid would improve objective measures of health. However, due to data constraints, this relationship has been difficult to demonstrate empirically, leading to widespread skepticism that Medicaid has any salutary effect on health whatsoever. Our paper overcomes documented data challenges by taking advantage of large- scare federal survey data that has been linked to administrative records on mortality. Using these data, we show that the Medicaid expansions substantially reduced mortality rates among those who stood to benefit the most. https://www.esquire.com/news-politi...-americans-died-medicaid-expansion-obamacare/ 15,000 Americans Died So Republican Governors Could Stick It to Obama