GOP LA Rep. Bill Cassidy can't explain why, but made the claim on C-SPAN's Washington Journal that those on Medicaid have worse outcomes than those with no insurance at all.

BRAWNER: You talked a lot about Medicaid reform. You think that the system is broken. Why?

CASSIDY: Oh my gosh. The goals of health care reform are to provide access to quality care at an affordable cost; Medicaid's a black hole for that. It does not provide access because it pays so poorly, specialists for example, but despite paying so poorly it's bankrupting the states, so there's a high cost and studies show that the care it does provide is below quality. And so it is the antithisis of where we want to be with reform.

BRAWNER: You said the quality of care is below average. Why?

CASSIDY: Well that is not, it's documented, but the reasons why are not entirely understood. But there's a recent report that showed that those on Medicaid have worse outcomes than patients with commercial insurance, patients who are on Medicare, the federal program. Remember Medicaid for your viewers who may not know this is a combined federal/state program that insures, so to speak, the low income folks. And it's actually worse than the uninsured.

So Medicaid, Medicaid patients in some cases have worse outcomes than patients who have no insurance whatsoever. Now, why that is is not understood, but what is known is there is a problem with the quality of the patients on Medicaid – the quality of health care for the patients on Medicaid receive.

Here's more from Think Progress -- GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy Says Being On Medicaid Is ‘Actually Worse’ Than Having No Insurance:

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.