During a long rant against government-subsidized health insurance today on C-Span’s Washington Journal, Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) claimed that being uninsured is better than being on Medicaid — the federal government program that provides health care for low-income Americans. [...]

Cassidy didn’t offer any specific examples of how Medicaid patients have worse outcomes than those who are uninsured. But it’s important to note that the uninsured population has a lot of young people who don’t consume health care, while the Medicaid population generally has more risk factors and is in need of coverage. Families USA has pointed out that Medicaid “is cost-effective” when compared to private health insurance. And there’s the obvious financial benefit of having government subsidized insurance versus private insurance, let alone no insurance at all:

Federal law limits how much people in Medicaid can be charged for their health care. For low-income people, this prevents costs from being a barrier to obtaining needed health care. Low-income adults with private health insurance pay more than six times as much on out-of-pocket costs than do low-income adults with Medicaid.

Go read the rest but this is the type of stuff that just makes my head hurt. It would have been nice if C-SPAN host Greta Wodele Brawner had asked him just who did this supposed "study" he was touting.