Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Medical Care for Children, Public Insurance, Private Insurance, and Racial Differences in Utilization

Contents:

Author Info

  • Currie, J.
  • Thomas, D.

Abstract

Data from two waves of the Child-Mother module of the National Longitudinal Surveys are used to examine the medical care received by children. We compare those covered by Medicaid, by private health insurance and those with no insurance coverage at all. We find there are substantial differences in the impact of public and private health insurance and these effects also differ between blacks and whites. White children on Medicaid tend to have more doctor checkups than any other children and white children on Medicaid or a private insurance plan have a higher number of doctor visits for illness. In contrast, for black children, neither Medicaid nor private insurance coverage is associated with any advantage in terms of the number of doctor visits for illness. Furthermore, black children with private coverage are no more likely than those with no coverage to have doctor checkups; black Medicaid children are more likely than either group to have checkups although the gap is not precisely estimated. We exploit the longitudinal dimension of the data in order to take account of potential selection and thus include child specific fixed effects in the models. The results are robust to the inclusion of these controls for unobserved heterogeneity. They suggest that private and public health insurance mean different things to different children, and that national insurance coverage will not equalize utilization of care.

(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Download Info

To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
1. Check below under "Related research" whether another version of this item is available online.
2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by RAND - Reprint Series in its series Papers with number 95-08.

as in new window
Length: 28 pages
Date of creation: 1995
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:fth:randrs:95-08

Contact details of provider:
Postal: 1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, California 90407-2138
Phone: 310-393-0411
Fax: 310-393-4818
Email:
Web page: http://www.rand.org/
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: MEDICAL CARE; INSURANCE;

Other versions of this item:

References

No references listed on IDEAS
You can help add them by filling out this form.

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Janet Currie, 1998. "The Effect of Welfare on Child Outcomes: What We Know and What We Need to Know," JCPR Working Papers 26, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
  2. Joseph J. Doyle Jr., 2005. "Health Insurance, Treatment and Outcomes: Using Auto Accidents as Health Shocks," NBER Working Papers 11099, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Jonathan Gruber, 2000. "Medicaid," NBER Working Papers 7829, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Jonathan Gruber, 2003. "Medicaid," NBER Chapters, in: Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, pages 15-78 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Currie, J, 1996. "Do Children of Immigrants Make Differential Use of Public Health Insurance?," Papers 96-13, RAND - Labor and Population Program.
  5. Janet Currie & John Fahr, 2002. "Medicaid Managed Care: Effects on Children's Medicaid Coverage and Utilization," NBER Working Papers 8812, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. Anne Case & Darren Lubotsky & Christina Paxson, 2001. "Economic Status and Health in Childhood: The Origins of the Gradient," NBER Working Papers 8344, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Currie, Janet & Grogger, Jeffrey, 2002. "Medicaid expansions and welfare contractions: offsetting effects on prenatal care and infant health?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 313-335, March.
  8. Carol Rapaport & Christopher A. Trenholm, 2000. "What do we really know about trends in outpatient medical expenditures for children, 1977-1987?," Staff Reports 97, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
  9. Janet Currie & Patricia Reagan, 1998. "Distance to Hospitals and Children's Access to Care: Is Being Closer Better, and for Whom?," NBER Working Papers 6836, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  10. Menno Pradhan & Fadia Saadah & Robert Sparrow, 2003. "Did the Healthcard Program ensure Access to Medical Care for the Poor during Indonesia's Economic Crisis?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 03-016/2, Tinbergen Institute.
  11. Robert Kaestner & Theodore Joyce & Andrew Racine, 1999. "Does Publicly Provided Health Insurance Improve the Health of Low-Income Children in the United States," NBER Working Papers 6887, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  12. Janet Currie & Jonathan Gruber, 1997. "The Technology of Birth: Health Insurance, Medical Interventions, and Infant Health," NBER Working Papers 5985, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  13. Busch, Susan H. & Duchovny, Noelia, 2005. "Family coverage expansions: Impact on insurance coverage and health care utilization of parents," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 876-890, September.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fth:randrs:95-08

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Thomas Krichel).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.