IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/8185.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What can the take-up of other programs teach us about how to improve take-up of health insurance programs?

Author

Listed:
  • Dahlia K. Remler
  • Jason E. Rachlin
  • Sherry A. Glied

Abstract

Many uninsured Americans are already eligible for free or low-cost public coverage through Medicaid or CHIP but do not take up that coverage. Several other programs, such as food stamps and unemployment insurance, also have less than complete take-up rates and take-up rates vary considerably among programs. This paper examines the take-up literature across a variety of programs to learn what effects non-financial features, such as administrative complexity, have on take-up. We find that making benefit receipt automatic is the most effective means of ensuring high take-up, while there is little evidence that stigma is important. Overall, surprisingly little is known about the quantitative impact, of non-financial characteristics of programs on take-up. New research that could be used to draw measurable causal inferences about how features as administrative complexity, renewal rules, and organizational structure affect participation, would be extremely valuable.

Suggested Citation

  • Dahlia K. Remler & Jason E. Rachlin & Sherry A. Glied, 2001. "What can the take-up of other programs teach us about how to improve take-up of health insurance programs?," NBER Working Papers 8185, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8185
    Note: EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w8185.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Scholz, John Karl, 1994. "The Earned Income Credit: Participation, Compliance, and Antipoverty Effectiveness," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 47(1), pages 63-87, March.
    3. Rebecca M. Blank & David E. Card, 1991. "Recent Trends in Insured and Uninsured Unemployment: Is There an Explanation?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1157-1189.
    4. Rebecca M. Blank, 1989. "The Effect of Medical Need and Medicaid on AFDC Participation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 24(1), pages 54-87.
    5. Moffitt, Robert, 1983. "An Economic Model of Welfare Stigma," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(5), pages 1023-1035, December.
    6. Moffitt, Robert & Wolfe, Barbara L, 1992. "The Effect of the Medicaid Program on Welfare Participation and Labor Supply," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(4), pages 615-626, November.
    7. Paul Storer & Marc A. Van Audenrode, 1995. "Unemployment Insurance Take-Up Rates in Canada: Facts, Determinants, and Implications," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 28(4a), pages 822-835, November.
    8. Brigitte C. Madrian & Dennis F. Shea, 2001. "The Power of Suggestion: Inertia in 401(k) Participation and Savings Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1149-1187.
    9. Bowen Garrett & Sherry Glied, 2000. "Does state AFDC generosity affect child SSI participation?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 275-295.
    10. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1992. "Understanding welfare stigma: Taxpayer resentment and statistical discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 165-183, July.
    11. J. K. Scholz, "undated". "The earned income tax credit: Participation, compliance, and antipoverty effectiveness," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1020-93, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    12. Scholz, John Karl, 1994. "The Earned Income Credit: Participation, Compliance, and Antipoverty Effectiveness," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 47(1), pages 63-87, March.
    13. M. Robin Dion & LaDonna Pavetti, "undated". "Access to and Participation in Medicaid and the Food Stamp Program: A Review of the Recent Literature," Mathematica Policy Research Reports bfdebd22c4ea47a9a95b33409, Mathematica Policy Research.
    14. Koning, Ruud H. & Ridder, Geert, 1997. "Rent assistance and housing demand," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 1-31, October.
    15. Kathleen McGarry, 1996. "Factors Determining Participation of the Elderly in Supplemental Security Income," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 31(2), pages 331-358.
    16. repec:mpr:mprres:2635 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Blundell, Richard & Fry, Vanessa & Walker, Ian, 1987. "Modelling the Take-up of Means-tested Benefits: the Case of Housing Benefits in the United Kingdom," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(390), pages 58-74, Supplemen.
    18. Rebecca M. Blank & Patricia Ruggles, 1996. "When Do Women Use Aid to Families with Dependent Children and Food Stamps? The Dynamics of Eligibility Versus Participation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 31(1), pages 57-89.
    19. Robert Moffitt, 1987. "Historical Growth in Participation in Aid to Families with Dependent Children: Was There a Structural Shift?," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 347-363, March.
    20. Patricia M. Anderson & Bruce D. Meyer, 1997. "Unemployment Insurance Takeup Rates and the After-Tax Value of Benefits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(3), pages 913-937.
    21. Yaniv, Gideon, 1997. "Welfare fraud and welfare stigma," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 435-451, June.
    22. Duclos, Jean-Yves, 1995. "Modelling the take-up of state support," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 391-415, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Sylvain Chareyron, 2016. "Le non-recours aux aides sociales sous conditions de ressources," Erudite Ph.D Dissertations, Erudite, number ph16-01 edited by Yannick L'Horty & François Legendre, April.
    2. Regina T. Riphahn, 2001. "Rational Poverty or Poor Rationality? The Take‐up of Social Assistance Benefits," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 47(3), pages 379-398, September.
    3. Sylvain Chareyron & Patrick Domingues, 2015. "Take-up of Social Assistance Benefits: The case of Homeless," TEPP Working Paper 2015-07, TEPP.
    4. Zantomio, Francesca, 2008. "The route to take-up: raising incentives or lowering barriers?," ISER Working Paper Series 2008-35, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    5. Sylvain Chareyron, 2015. "Take-up of social assistance benefits: The case of homeless Take-up of Social Assistance Benefits: The Case of Homeless," Working Papers hal-01292107, HAL.
    6. Sylvain Chareyron & Patrick Domingues, 2018. "Take‐Up of Social Assistance Benefits: The Case of the French Homeless," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(1), pages 170-191, March.
    7. A. S. Yelowitz, "undated". "Did recent medicaid reforms cause the caseload explosion in the food stamp program?," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1109-96, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    8. Sylvain Chareyron, 2018. "Pauvreté et non-recours aux dispositifs sociaux : l’étude du RSA « socle seul »," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 0(1), pages 41-59.
    9. Terracol, Antoine, 2009. "Guaranteed minimum income and unemployment duration in France," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 171-182, April.
    10. Hernandez, Monica & Pudney, Stephen, 2007. "Measurement error in models of welfare participation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1-2), pages 327-341, February.
    11. Julie Janssens & Natascha Van Mechelen, 2017. "Who is to Blame? An Overview of the Factors Contributing to the Non-Take-Up of Social Rights," Working Papers 1708, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    12. Olivier Bargain & Herwig Immervoll & Heikki Viitamäki, 2012. "No claim, no pain. Measuring the non-take-up of social assistance using register data," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(3), pages 375-395, September.
    13. Friedrichsen, Jana & König, Tobias & Schmacker, Renke, 2016. "Welfare stigma in the lab: Evidence of social signaling," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Behavior SP II 2016-208, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    14. Pudney, Stephen & Hancock, Ruth & Henandez, Monica, 2004. "Participation in multiple welfare programmes: discrete choice with heterogeneous awareness," ISER Working Paper Series 2004-15, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    15. Ha Trong Nguyen & Huong Thu Le & Luke B Connelly, 2021. "Who's declining the “free lunch”? New evidence from the uptake of public child dental benefits," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(2), pages 270-288, February.
    16. Jun-ichi Itaya & Kenichi Kurita, 2020. "Replicator Evolution of Welfare Stigma: Welfare Fraud vs. Incomplete Take-Up," CESifo Working Paper Series 8621, CESifo.
    17. Friedrichsen, Jana & König, Tobias & Schmacker, Renke, 2018. "Social image concerns and welfare take-up," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 174-192.
    18. Bargain, Olivier & Immervoll, Herwig & Viitamäki, Heikki, 2007. "How Tight Are Safety-Nets in Nordic Countries? Evidence from Finnish Register Data," IZA Discussion Papers 3004, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. A. S. Yelowitz, "undated". "Public Policy and Health Care Choices of the Elderly: Evidence from the Medicare Buy-In Program," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1136-97, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    20. Stephen Pudney & Monica Hernandez & Ruth Hancock, 2007. "The welfare cost of means-testing: pensioner participation in income support," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(3), pages 581-598.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health

    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:8185. 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.