Evaluations of changes to the Medicaid program have focused on increases in the generosity of income cutoffs for Medicaid eligibility. Previous research shows that despite dramatic increases in the number of births paid for by the Medicaid program, women often enroll in Medicaid at the point of...

The purpose of this paper is to examine issues related to the coverage of preventive care under national health insurance. Four specific kinds of medical care services are included under the rubric of preventive care: prenatal care; pediatric care, dental care, and preventive physicians' services...

This paper examines the impact of public health insurance expansions through both Medicaid and SCHIP on children's educational outcomes, measured by 4th and 8th grade reading and math test scores, available from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). We use a triple difference...

Basic economic theory suggests that health insurance coverage may cause a reduction in prevention activities, but empirical studies have yet to provide much evidence to support this prediction. However, in other insurance contexts that involve adverse health events, evidence of ex ante moral...

In 1992, the United States Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) introduced new insurance coverage for two preventive services influenza vaccinations and mammograms. Economists typically assume transactions occur with perfect information and foresight. As a test of the value of...

This paper examines the impacts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) - which substantially increased insurance coverage through regulations, mandates, subsidies, and Medicaid expansions - on behaviors related to future health risks after three years. Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor...

We explore the effects of recent Medicaid expansions on Medicaid-financed prescriptions for evidence-based smoking cessation medications. We estimate differences-in-differences models using administrative data on the universe of prescription medications sold in retail and online pharmacies for...

The U.S. population receives suboptimal levels of preventive care and has a high prevalence of risky health behaviors. One goal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was to increase preventive care and improve health behaviors by expanding access to health insurance

Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for public insurance coverage for prenatal care in most states, despite their children representing a large fraction of births and having U.S. citizenship. In this paper, we examine a policy that expanded Medicaid pregnancy coverage to undocumented...