Investigating Medicaid: How will the Poorest Patients Fare?

Health reform will greatly expand the existing Medicaid program to provide health care to millions more Americans below the poverty line. It seems like a good idea on its face, but under the current system, patients covered by Medicaid generally are the unhealthiest people in the country. It's a case where having insurance coverage does not necessarily mean that you have access to good care.

It begs the question: If we add more people to an already overloaded system, will this exacerbate existing problems?

With the help of the California Endowment's National Health Journalism Fellowship, I plan to examine the life-and-death shortcomings of Medicaid as a way of foreshadowing problems with its coming expansion.