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Medicaid and Wealth: An Examination Using the NLSY79

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  • Maury Gittleman

    () (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Abstract

Do public insurance programs crowd out private savings? I examine the relationship between Medicaid and wealth and make a contribution to the literature on this issue in three primary ways. First, I apply the instrumental-variables approach developed by Gruber and Yelowitz (1999) to a different dataset, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 (NLSY79), while at the same time examining an alternative instrument. The results turn out to differ depending on the instrument and, for one of the instruments, to be sensitive to assumptions needed to identify Medicaid’s effects. Second, using the longitudinal data in the NLSY79, I am able to observe families before and after becoming eligible for Medicaid, and use fixed-effects to control for family-specific unobservable factors that are correlated with both Medicaid eligibility and wealth accumulation. It turns out, however, that assessment of the impact of Medicaid by means of fixed effects has its limitations as well. Third, I make use of the SIPP data used by Gruber and Yelowitz themselves, and examine the sensitivity of their conclusions to omitted factors that may be related to both Medicaid eligibility and to wealth accumulation. While more robust than the results using the NLSY79, the SIPP estimates are found to depend on the sample used and on certain specification restrictions. Taken together, the results suggest caution in making inferences about the impact of Medicaid on wealth.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in its series Working Papers with number 448.

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Length: 52 pages
Date of creation: Sep 2011
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:bls:wpaper:ec110060

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Keywords: Medicaid; Wealth;

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References

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  1. Sílvio Rendon, 2003. "Does Wealth Explain Black-White Differences In Early Employment Careers?," Economics Working Papers we032303, Universidad Carlos III, Departamento de Economía.
  2. Christopher D. Carroll & Karen E. Dynan & Spencer D. Krane, 1999. "Unemployment risk and precautionary wealth: evidence from households' balance sheets," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1999-15, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  3. Starr-McCluer, Martha, 1996. "Health Insurance and Precautionary Savings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 285-95, March.
  4. Lara D. Shore-Sheppard, 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 6.
  5. Aigner, Dennis J., 1973. "Regression with a binary independent variable subject to errors of observation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 49-59, March.
  6. Jonathan Gruber & Aaron S. Yelowitz, 1998. "Public Health Insurance and Private Savings," JCPR Working Papers 42, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
  7. Lara D. Shore-Sheppard, 2005. "Stemming the Tide? The Effect of Expanding Medicaid Eligibility on Health Insurance," Department of Economics Working Papers 2005-06, Department of Economics, Williams College.
  8. Martin Browning & Thomas F. Crossley, 2000. "The Life Cycle Model of Consumption and Saving," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 28, McMaster University.
  9. Powers, Elizabeth T., 1998. "Does means-testing welfare discourage saving? evidence from a change in AFDC policy in the United States," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 33-53, April.
  10. Thomas J. Kane & Cecilia Rouse & Douglas Staiger, 1999. "Estimating Returns to Schooling When Schooling is Misreported," Working Papers 798, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
  11. 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.
  12. Elizabeth M. Caucutt & Nezih Guner & John Knowles, 2001. "The Timing of Births: A Marriage Market Analysis," Penn CARESS Working Papers 49355d43c11f2314075e8b54e, Penn Economics Department.
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