Last Friday’s episode of the Planet Money podcast examined whether Medicaid actually helps people or whether it’s a waste of public dollars. Alex Blumberg interviews Katherine Baiker, a Harvard researcher who had the unique opportunity to compare people receiving and not receiving Medicaid after Oregon held a lottery to fill 10,000 openings in their Medicaid program. Her findings conclusively show that enrollees enjoy better health and increased financial stability, but at a significant cost because Medicaid enrollees use more health care services.

Professor Baiker cautions health care advocates against making claims that expanding Medicaid saves money (something of which I’ve been guilty of doing). Instead, we should focus on the actual improvements in health that Medicaid provides to low-income people. Policymakers can then have an honest debate about whether better health outcomes are worth the additional public dollars. It’s sound advice for us wonks. Sometimes we’re a little too eager to quantify our policy preferences in terms of dollars and cents. We fear that talking solely about the differences Medicaid can make in people’s lives might sound a little too…earnest. But we shouldn’t be afraid to sound earnest as long as we are clear-eyed about the costs associated with our positions.