Whenever Medicaid is mentioned, Oregon always seems to be at the center of attention and controversy.
Two decades ago, Oregon's efforts to prioritize expenditures through the systematic and public ranking of medical services created a storm of controversy, as well as worldwide debate over the morality and administrative feasibility of (at least supposed) rationing of services to control Medicaid expenditures (Oberlander, Marmor, and Jacobs 2001).
Within the past year, the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment (OHIE) has made front-page news. In 2008, Oregon opened a waiting list for a limited number of low-income uninsured adults to receive Medicaid. State officials drew names by lottery from ninety thousand people who had signed up for a waiting list. This lottery structure made possible a rigorous randomized trial, within which one could explore the impact of Medicaid enrollment on health services use, physical and mental health, and the burdens of medical debt (Finkelstein...
