IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/13261.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Did SCHIP Affect the Insurance Coverage of Immigrant Children?

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Buchmueller
  • Anthony Lo Sasso
  • Kathleen Wong

Abstract

The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) significantly expanded public insurance eligibility and coverage for children in "working poor" families. Despite this success, it is estimated that over 6 million children who are eligible for public insurance remain uninsured. An important first step for designing strategies to increase enrollment of eligible but uninsured children is to determine how the take-up of public coverage varies within the population. Because of their low rates of insurance coverage and unique enrollment barriers, children of immigrants are an especially important group to consider. We compare the effect of SCHIP eligibility on the insurance coverage of children of foreign-born and native-born parents. In contrast to research on the earlier Medicaid expansions, we find similar take-up rates for the two groups. This suggests that state outreach strategies were not only effective at increasing take-up overall, but were successful in reducing disparities in access to coverage.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Buchmueller & Anthony Lo Sasso & Kathleen Wong, 2007. "How Did SCHIP Affect the Insurance Coverage of Immigrant Children?," NBER Working Papers 13261, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13261
    Note: EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13261.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cynthia Bansak & Steven Raphael, 2007. "The effects of state policy design features on take-up and crowd-out rates for the state children's health insurance program," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(1), pages 149-175.
    2. Janet Currie & Jonathan Gruber, 1996. "Health Insurance Eligibility, Utilization of Medical Care, and Child Health," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 431-466.
    3. Mark C. Berger & Dan A. Black & Frank A. Scott, 1998. "How Well Do We Measure Employer‐Provided Health Insurance Coverage?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 16(3), pages 356-367, July.
    4. Marianne P. Bitler & Jonah B. Gelbach & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2005. "Welfare Reform and Health," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(2).
    5. John Cawley & Kosali I. Simon, 2003. "The Impact of Macroeconomic Conditions on the Health Insurance Coverage of Americans," NBER Chapters, in: Frontiers in Health Policy Research, Volume 6, pages 87-114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. John Ham & Lara Dawn Shore-Sheppard, 2000. "The Effect of Medicaid Expansions for Low-Income Children on Medicaid Participation and Insurance Coverage: Evidence from the SIPP," JCPR Working Papers 164, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    7. Lo Sasso, Anthony T. & Buchmueller, Thomas C., 2004. "The effect of the state children's health insurance program on health insurance coverage," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 1059-1082, September.
    8. 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.
    9. Anna Aizer, 2007. "Public Health Insurance, Program Take-Up, and Child Health," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(3), pages 400-415, August.
    10. 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.
    11. Barbara Wolfe & Scott Scrivner, 2005. "The devil may be in the details: How the characteristics of SCHIP programs affect take-up," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(3), pages 499-522.
    12. Janet Currie, 2000. "Do Children of Immigrants Make Differential Use of Public Health Insurance?," NBER Chapters, in: Issues in the Economics of Immigration, pages 271-308, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Anna Aizer & Jeffrey Grogger, 2003. "Parental Medicaid Expansions and Health Insurance Coverage," NBER Working Papers 9907, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Cawley John H & Schroeder Mathis & Simon Kosali Ilayperu, 2005. "Welfare Reform and the Health Insurance Coverage of Women and Children," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-32, January.
    15. Sherry Glied & Kathrine Jack, 2003. "Macroeconomic Conditions, Health Care Costs, and the Distribution of Health Insurance," NBER Working Papers 10029, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Borjas, George J., 2003. "Welfare reform, labor supply, and health insurance in the immigrant population," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 933-958, November.
    17. Anna Aizer, 2003. "Low Take-Up in Medicaid: Does Outreach Matter and for Whom?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 238-241, May.
    18. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Averett, Susan L. & Smith, Julie K. & Wang, Yang, 2019. "Minimum Wages and the Health and Access to Care of Immigrants' Children," IZA Discussion Papers 12606, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Aig Unuigbe, 2019. "Impact of medicaid policy changes on immigrant parents," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 395-417, December.
    3. Keshar M. Ghimire, 2018. "Impact of children's health insurance benefit on labor supply of adults: evidence from newly arrived immigrants," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(1), pages 234-247.
    4. David W. Brown & Amanda E. Kowalski & Ithai Z. Lurie, 2015. "Medicaid as an Investment in Children: What is the Long-Term Impact on Tax Receipts"," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1979, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    5. Tara Watson, 2014. "Inside the Refrigerator: Immigration Enforcement and Chilling Effects in Medicaid Participation," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 313-338, August.
    6. Brandyn Churchill, 2021. "E‐Verify mandates and unauthorized immigrants' health insurance coverage," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 88(2), pages 487-526, October.
    7. Chen, Chia-Ching & Yamada, Tetsuji & Smith, John & Chiu, I-Ming, 2011. "Improving children's healthcare through state health insurance programs: An emerging need," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 72-82, January.
    8. Bronchetti, Erin Todd, 2014. "Public insurance expansions and the health of immigrant and native children," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 205-219.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thomas Buchmueller & John C. Ham & Lara D. Shore-Sheppard, 2015. "The Medicaid Program," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 1, pages 21-136, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Lo Sasso, Anthony T. & Buchmueller, Thomas C., 2004. "The effect of the state children's health insurance program on health insurance coverage," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 1059-1082, September.
    3. Bronchetti, Erin Todd, 2014. "Public insurance expansions and the health of immigrant and native children," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 205-219.
    4. James Marton & Aaron Yelowitz, 2015. "Health insurance generosity and conditional coverage: Evidence from medicaid managed care in Kentucky," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(2), pages 535-555, October.
    5. Marianne Bitler & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2006. "Welfare Reform and Indirect Impacts on Health," NBER Working Papers 12642, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Marcus Dillender, 2017. "English Skills and the Health Insurance Coverage of Immigrants," American Journal of Health Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(3), pages 312-345, Summer.
    7. Datta, Anusua & Vandegrift, Donald, 2011. "Effects of welfare reform and the state children’s health insurance program on medicaid and total health expenditures," MPRA Paper 36486, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. David Zimmer, 2011. "The Effects of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program on Insurance Status and Health Care Utilization of Children," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 373-383, June.
    9. Pauline Leung & Alexandre Mas, 2016. "Employment Effects of the ACA Medicaid Expansions," Working Papers 594, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    10. Hamersma, Sarah & Kim, Matthew, 2013. "Participation and crowd out: Assessing the effects of parental Medicaid expansions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 160-171.
    11. Aig Unuigbe, 2019. "Impact of medicaid policy changes on immigrant parents," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 395-417, December.
    12. Marianne P. Bitler & Madeline Zavodny, 2014. "Medicaid: A Review of the Literature," NBER Working Papers 20169, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Ho Jin Lee & Akinori Tomohara, 2008. "Public health insurance expansions and labour supply of married women: the state children's health insurance programme," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(7), pages 863-874.
    14. de la Mata, D, 2011. "The Effect of Medicaid on Children's Health: A Regression Discontinuity Approach," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 11/16, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    15. Dolores De La Mata, 2012. "The Effect Of Medicaid Eligibility On Coverage, Utilization, And Children'S Health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(9), pages 1061-1079, September.
    16. Frean, Molly & Gruber, Jonathan & Sommers, Benjamin D., 2017. "Premium subsidies, the mandate, and Medicaid expansion: Coverage effects of the Affordable Care Act," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 72-86.
    17. Sarah Miller & Laura Wherry & Gloria Aldana, 2022. "Covering Undocumented Immigrants: The Effects of a Large-Scale Prenatal Care Intervention," NBER Working Papers 30299, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Thompson, Owen, 2017. "The long-term health impacts of Medicaid and CHIP," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 26-40.
    19. Sheila Hoag & Sean Orzol & Margaret Colby & Adam Swinburn & Fredric Blavin & Genevieve M. Kenney & Michael Huntress, "undated". "CHIPRA Mandated Evaluation of Express Lane Eligibility: First Year Findings," Mathematica Policy Research Reports ea8d230cec104e90ad417b32a, Mathematica Policy Research.
    20. Wagner, Kathryn L., 2016. "Shock, but no shift: Hospitals' responses to changes in patient insurance mix," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 46-58.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13261. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.