Provider payments are the key determinant of insurance generosity within many health insurance programs covering low-income populations. This paper analyzes the effects of a large, federally-mandated provider payment increase for primary care services provided to low-income elderly and disabled...

Many public programs let individuals choose between publicly provided benefits and a subsidized private alternative. We investigate the determinants of health insurance choice in Medicare--a setting with vast geographic variation in the share of individuals selecting the public option versus...

Following decades of increasing child access to public health insurance, enrollments fell in many states between 2016 and 2019 and the number of uninsured children increased. This study provides the first national, quantitative assessment of the role of several common types of administrative...

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is a widely used program. Previous research shows that WIC improves birth outcomes, but evidence about impacts on children and families is limited. We use a regression discontinuity leveraging an age five when...

Firearm violence is a pervasive public health crisis in the United States, with significant numbers of homicides involving firearms, including indiscriminate shootings in public spaces. This paper investigates the largely unexplored consequences of stress induced by these attacks on newborn...

Black mothers with unscheduled deliveries are 25 percent more likely to deliver by C-section than non-Hispanic white mothers. The gap is highest for mothers with the lowest risk and is reduced by only four percentage points when controlling for observed medical risk factors, sociodemographic...