When Medicaid beneficiaries can’t get an appointment with a doctor, they turn to the emergency room. Indeed, according to a June 2017 study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, ER visits increased in states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare. A New England Journal of Medicine study of an expansion of Medicaid in Oregon that was similar to Obamacare’s yielded similar results. ER visits increased 40 percent in the fifteen months after the state expanded the program.
