TY - JOUR AU - Kaestner,Robert AU - Kaushal,Neeraj TI - Welfare Reform and Health Insurance Coverage of Low-Income Families JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 10033 PY - 2003 Y2 - October 2003 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10033 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10033.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Robert Kaestner Institute of Government and Public Affairs University of Illinois 815 West Van Buren Street, Suite 525 Chicago, IL 60607 Tel: 312/996-8227 E-Mail: kaestner.robert@gmail.com Neeraj Kaushal Columbia University School of Social Work 1255 Amsterdam Avenue New York, NY 10027 Tel: 212/851-2235 Fax: 212/851-2204 E-Mail: nk464@columbia.edu AB - We study whether welfare reform adversely affected the health insurance coverage of low-educated single mothers and their children. Specifically, we investigate whether changes in the welfare caseload during the 1990s were associated with changes in Medicaid participation, private insurance coverage, and the number of uninsured among single mothers and their children. Estimates suggest that between 1996 and 1999, the 42 percent decrease in the welfare caseload was associated with the following changes in insurance coverage among low-educated, single mothers: a seven to nine percent decrease in Medicaid coverage; an increase in employer-sponsored, private insurance coverage of six percent; and a two to nine percent increase in the proportion uninsured. Among children of low-educated, single mothers, effects were somewhat smaller. Since welfare policy was responsible for only part (e.g., one-third) of the decline in the caseload, welfare reform per se had significantly smaller effects on the health insurance status of low-income families. However, we found limited evidence that changes in the caseload due to state and federal welfare policy had fewer adverse consequences on insurance status than changes in the caseload due to other factors. This implies even smaller effects of welfare reform. ER -