The Milbank Memorial Fund released a telling review today of three of the studies opponents of Medicaid expansion in the remaining reluctant states often cite for the dubious premise that getting health care coverage under Medicaid is – cue ominous organ note – actually bad for a person’s health. Milbank took a calm, unbiased look at the actual research studies and found that when actually looking at these studies these claims didn’t hold up.  For example, a study frequently cited as showing that Medicaid patients had worse health outcomes than insured patients also found that on many health procedures Medicaid patients fared better than those uninsured or even with private insurance. And, to further muddy the results, the same study also found that on some procedures uninsured people had better health outcomes than those with private health coverage.  Taking a look at the research before making claims based on that research is important.