From Austin Frakt, a health economist at Boston University:
The evidence that insurance and the access to care it facilitates improves health, particularly for vulnerable populations (due to age or chronic illness, or both) is as close to an incontrovertible truth as one can find in social science.
No argument from me. Routine access to medical care is cheaper than emergency room visits, promotes preventive medicine, reduces pain, increases mobility and employability, lowers stress, prevents medical bankruptcies, and — unless none of this stuff matters at all — almost certainly lengthens lives.