Childhood Medicaid Coverage and Later Life Health Care Utilization / Laura R. Wherry, Sarah Miller, Robert Kaestner, Bruce D. Meyer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wherry, Laura R.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Miller, Sarah.

Kaestner, Robert.

Meyer, Bruce D.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w20929.

NBER working paper series no. w20929

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2015.

Summary:

Policy-makers have argued that providing public health insurance coverage to the uninsured lowers long-run costs by reducing the need for expensive hospitalizations and emergency department visits later in life. In this paper, we provide evidence for such a phenomenon by exploiting a legislated discontinuity in the cumulative number of years a child is eligible for Medicaid based on date of birth. We find that having more years of Medicaid eligibility in childhood is associated with fewer hospitalizations and emergency department visits in adulthood for blacks. Our effects are particularly pronounced for hospitalizations and emergency department visits related to chronic illnesses and those of patients living in low-income neighborhoods. Furthermore, we find evidence suggesting that these effects are larger in states where the difference in the number of Medicaid-eligible years across the cutoff birthdate is greater. Calculations suggest that lower rates of hospitalizations and emergency department visits during one year in adulthood offset between 3 and 5 percent of the initial costs of expanding Medicaid.

Notes:

Print version record

February 2015.