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Health Insurance Coverage and Risky Health Behaviors among Young Adults

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  • Yörük Barış K.

    (Economics, SUNY Albany, 1400 Washington Ave, Albany 12222,, New YorkUSA)

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between health insurance coverage and risky health behaviors among young adults using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 Cohort (NLSY97). Before the Affordable Care Act required all employers in the United States to provide health insurance to employees’ children until the age of 26 (before September 2010), many health insurance contracts covered dependents up until age 19. Using a regression discontinuity design framework, I find that approximately 6 percent of young adults lose their health insurance coverage once they turn 19. I also find that although losing health insurance coverage at age 19 does not have any significant impact on smoking, marijuana use, and risky sexual behaviors among young adults, it decreases the probability of consuming 5 or more drinks a day by approximately 2 percentage points. These results are robust under several different parametric and non-parametric models and not sensitive to the selection of samples based on gender.

Suggested Citation

  • Yörük Barış K., 2017. "Health Insurance Coverage and Risky Health Behaviors among Young Adults," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 17(3), pages 1-21, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:17:y:2017:i:3:p:21:n:8
    DOI: 10.1515/bejeap-2016-0282
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    Cited by:

    1. Yörük Barış K., 2018. "Health insurance coverage and health care utilization: Evidence from the Affordable Care Act’s dependent coverage mandate," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 21(2), pages 1-24, December.
    2. Tu T. Nguyen & Barış K. Yörük, 2020. "Aging out of dependent coverage and the effects on the use of inpatient medical care," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 381-390, December.
    3. Aparna Soni, 2020. "The effects of public health insurance on health behaviors: Evidence from the fifth year of Medicaid expansion," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(12), pages 1586-1605, December.
    4. Barış K. Yörük, 2016. "Health insurance coverage and self-reported health: new estimates from the NLSY97," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 285-295, September.
    5. Yan Zheng & Tomislav Vukina, 2016. "Using the age-based insurance eligibility criterion to estimate moral hazard in medical care consumption," Financial Theory and Practice, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 40(3), pages 337-356.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    alcohol consumption; health insurance coverage; marijuana use; smoking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

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