Government Report Shows Medicaid Patients As Happy With Their Care As Private Insurance Patients

A couple of months ago the Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan auditing and investigation arm of the United States Congress, issued a report showing that people who receive health care under Medicaid have about the same satisfaction with their level of care as those who have private insurance plans.

The study, issued in November, showed that about 3.7% of those on Medicaid reported that they had some difficulty in receiving necessary care within the prior year. That isn’t significantly larger than the 3% of those with private insurance plans who reported the same. Both people on private insurance and those on Medicaid had a significantly lower difficulty rate than those with no insurance, who reported a 10.4% rate of being unable to find necessary care.

There was, however, a much larger gap in dental care services between those on private insurance and Medicaid. 3.7% of those on private insurance reported being unable to obtain necessary services, will 5.4% of those on Medicaid did the same. This may be attributable to states that do not provide dental care as part of their Medicaid coverage.

Like primary medical care, there was also no significant difference in satisfaction levels for people receiving prescription medications. 2.4% of those on private care plans said they experienced difficulty obtaining needed medications in the last year, while 2.7% of those on Medicaid said the same. Again, people without insurance have a much higher rate of being unable to obtain necessary medication, at about 5.6%.