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DeathMonkey writes:

In the years after health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act unfurled in Multnomah County, Oregon, cardiac arrests among those newly covered fell 17 percent, researchers report this week in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

The pilot study, led by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University and the Heart Institute of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, is just an observational study—it can't determine causation—and it only looked at the one county. But, the authors argue, the data begs for follow-up.

[...] The correlation doesn't mean that the insurance coverage caused the change, the authors stress. And even if it did, it's not clear from the data how insurance affected cardiac arrest rates. It's possible that with improved diagnoses and preventative care, heart health could improve in this age range. Interventions like smoking cessation programs and medications for cholesterol and atherosclerosis could all improve health, the authors speculate. But more and larger studies are needed to determine if this is true.

Ars Technica coverage: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/after-aca-arrived-in-an-oregon-county-there-was-a-17-drop-in-cardiac-arrest/
The study in question: http://jaha.ahajournals.org/content/6/7/e005667

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