Socioeconomically disadvantaged groups may still be underusing emergency departments for potentially serious illnesses in the wake of the COVID pandemic, despite an overall rebound in emergency department use by 2022. Most of the rebound had been driven primarily by patients covered by commercial insurance or Medicare fee-for-service. When stratified by insurance type, however, the rebound was found to be significantly lower among patients covered by Medicaid or dual Medicare/Medicaid, who tend to be socioeconomically disadvantaged.

A new study published in the Journal of Substance Use and Addiction Treatment examined federal data on health and drug use among nearly 20,000 people who inject drugs and are low-income in the US, and found no association between Medicaid expansion and misuse of prescription opioids or benzodiazepines, drugs often prescribed for anxiety or insomnia. These findings present real-world data that disprove narratives claiming that Medicaid expansion has fueled the longstanding opioid crisis in America by increasing access to low-cost prescription opioids diverted for non-prescribed use.