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Stemming the Tide? The Effect of Expanding Medicaid Eligibility On Health Insurance Coverage

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  • Shore-Sheppard Lara D.

    (Williams College)

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" by investigating a number of critiques leveled at the seminal work of Cutler and Gruber (1996) and extending the analysis to include further expansions of Medicaid. I find that accounting for most critiques of Cutler and Gruber does not substantively affect their estimates of sizable take-up and crowd-out. However, controlling for age-specific time trends does substantially reduce the estimated take-up and crowd-out and recovers results close to those found elsewhere in the literature. I also find that later expansions generated much lower rates of take-up and crowding out.

Suggested Citation

  • Shore-Sheppard Lara D., 2008. "Stemming the Tide? The Effect of Expanding Medicaid Eligibility On Health Insurance Coverage," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 1-35, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:8:y:2008:i:2:n:6
    DOI: 10.2202/1935-1682.2022
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. David Card & Lara D. Shore-Sheppard, 2004. "Using Discontinuous Eligibility Rules to Identify the Effects of the Federal Medicaid Expansions on Low-Income Children," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(3), pages 752-766, August.
    2. David M. Cutler & Jonathan Gruber, 1996. "Does Public Insurance Crowd out Private Insurance?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 391-430.
    3. David Card & Andrew K.G. Hildreth & Lara D. Shore-Sheppard, 2004. "The Measurement of Medicaid Coverage in the SIPP: Evidence From a Comparison of Matched Records," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 22, pages 410-420, October.
    4. Gruber, Jonathan & Simon, Kosali, 2008. "Crowd-out 10 years later: Have recent public insurance expansions crowded out private health insurance?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 201-217, March.
    5. Card, David, 1996. "The Effect of Unions on the Structure of Wages: A Longitudinal Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(4), pages 957-979, July.
    6. Blumberg, Linda J. & Dubay, Lisa & Norton, Stephen A., 2000. "Did the Medicaid expansions for children displace private insurance? An analysis using the SIPP," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 33-60, January.
    7. Ham, John C. & Shore-Sheppard, Lara, 2005. "The effect of Medicaid expansions for low-income children on Medicaid participation and private insurance coverage: evidence from the SIPP," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 57-83, January.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models
    • E10 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - General

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