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Unnamed's avatar

The authors say they primarily designed the study to measure hospitalization rates, so they may not have had the statistical power for detecting changes in health outcomes. Also may help explain why they didn't have the best analysis design for estimating the effects on health outcomes. Here are a few quotes from the paper:

Our primary outcomes were insurance and hospital utilization at 18 months (midline) and 3.5 years (endline) after insurance access. Secondary outcomes included insurance enrollment; other utilization metrics, such as the inability to use insurance and outpatient surgeries (endline only); and multiple categories of health.[...]

Our target sample size, 2,250 households per group, ensured 80% power to detect a 25% change in hospitalization rate across groups at the 5% significance level[...]

[This study] has limitations. First, the study was designed to be powered to detect a change in the hospitalization rate, not necessarily changes in health outcomes. Recent research has shown that samples sized in the millions may be required to find effects on rare outcomes

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AntiGnostic's avatar

Medicine is for sick people. Access to medicine no more makes you healthy than access to the Internet makes you well-informed, or public schooling makes you educated.

I shell out $610/mo. for health insurance so I won't be bankrupted by a car wreck or cancer diagnosis, and to lower costs for the fat, old, reckless, and hypochondriac, and cover the rent-seeking imposed by an archaic, dysfunctional tort system.

You're welcome.

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