A new study published in Health Affairs, “Can Medicaid Expansion Prevent Housing Evictions?,” found that early Medicaid expansion in California was associated with an average reduction of 24.5 fewer evictions per month per county. The researchers compared 51 counties in California that expanded Medicaid to 235 counties in states that did not expand Medicaid. The results suggest that for every 1,000 new Medicaid enrollees in California, Medicaid expansion was associated with approximately 22 fewer evictions per year. The most pronounced effects were found in counties with high rates of uninsured residents before expansion.
“Medicaid expansion has been shown to reduce medical debt and poverty by alleviating the financial burden of medical care on low-income beneficiaries and their families,” write the study’s authors. “Health care coverage may be keeping households from falling over the brink, helping them meet their living expenses as the growing cost of medical care constrains household budgets. Our findings indicate that Medicaid not only is an important part of the health care safety net but also may be considered a key strategy for addressing poverty-related housing instability.”
Learn more about how Medicaid policy improved housing stability in California at: https://bit.ly/2lpDNQO
Learn more about how housing policies can improve health outcomes at: https://bit.ly/2XP2ZlJ