Medicaid in Oregon - A Randomized Controlled Trial

In 2008, enough new revenue became available that the state of Oregon could afford to cover 10,000 more low-income adults in its Medicaid program. The problem with first-come first-serve is that you're likely to favor people who have internet connections or are more tied into the social safety net. And so in the end, they decided they'd open a waiting list and they advertised really heavily for almost 90,000 people. Then they drew names from the waiting list by lottery.