ObamaCare Punishes Readmissions, Driving Up Mortality Rate

Where you have ham-fisted, one-size-fits-all, centralized coercion, you have unintended consequences. ObamaCare is no exception. One goal of ObamaCare is to reduce costs by punishing hospitals that have above-average readmissions for Medicare patients. The result:

Researchers found that the 30-day readmission rate (adjusted for patient risk) declined to 18.4% from 20% after the penalties were introduced. Yet the 30-day mortality rate increased to 8.6% from 7.2%—about 5,400 additional deaths per year. Over a one-year period the readmission rate fell by 0.9 percentage points while the mortality rate rose by five.

To avoid being punished by the bureauweenies in Washington, hospitals are forced to avoid readmissions any way they can. Patients die as a consequence.

In fairness, progressive technocrats might argue that this reduces strain on the healthcare system, because dead people don’t require medical care.

On a tip from Varla.