From the Atlantic and Megan McCardle: Medicaid and wellbeing. Next question, even bigger: How much does Medicine in general improve wellbeing?

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/how-much-does-medicaid-improve-well-being/241587/

"As for lower mortality--economist-speak for 'confirms that Medicaid does, indeed, save lives', the authors didn't find any such thing. I quote: 'Panel A shows that we do not detect any statistically significant improvement in survival probability.' Mortality and related metrics such as life-expectancy is the easiest thing to measure--we can all pretty much agree on who is dead, and that death is generally pretty bad. It's also, for obvious reasons, the easiest emotional appeal for proponents of a program."