Working Paper: NBER ID: w11091
Authors: Lara D. Shoresheppard
Abstract: Despite considerable research, there is little consensus about the impact of Medicaid eligibility expansions for low-income children. In this paper, I reexamine the expansions' impact on Medicaid take-up and private insurance "crowd-out." Focusing on the most influential estimates of the expansions' impact, I show that while many of the critiques leveled at these estimates have little effect on their magnitude, accounting for age-specific trends in coverage produces estimates similar to others in the literature. Estimating the impact of later expansions using additional years of data, I find low rates of take-up and no evidence of crowding out.
Keywords: Medicaid; health insurance; low-income children; crowd out; takeup rates
JEL Codes: I1
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Medicaid eligibility expansions (I18) | insurance coverage (G52) |
| age-specific trends (J11) | estimated marginal takeup rates (J49) |
| Medicaid eligibility expansions (I18) | crowdout effect (D26) |
| control variables (C39) | biases in estimates (C51) |
| state expansions in later years (H79) | health insurance coverage for newly eligible children (I13) |