TY  - JOUR
AU  - DeLeire,Thomas
AU  - Lopoo,Leonard M.
AU  - Simon,Kosali I.
TI  - Medicaid Expansions and Fertility in the United States
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12907
PY  - 2007
Y2  - February 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12907
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12907.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Thomas DeLeire
La Follette School of Public Affairs
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1225 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706
Tel: 608-263-6998
Fax: 608/263-2820
E-Mail: deleire@wisc.edu

Leonard M. Lopoo
Department of Public Administration, The Maxwell S
Syracuse University,
Syracuse, NY 13244-1020
E-Mail: lmlopoo@maxwell.syr.edu

Kosali I. Simon
School of Public and Environmental Affairs
Indiana University
Rm 359
1315 East Tenth Street
Bloomington, IN 47405-1701
Tel: (812) 856-3850
E-Mail: simonkos@indiana.edu
AB  - Beginning in the mid 1980s and extending through the early to mid 1990s, a substantial number of women and children gained eligibility for Medicaid through a series of income-based expansions.  Using natality data from the National Center for Health Statistics, we estimate fertility responses to these eligibility expansions.  We measure changes in state Medicaid eligibility policy by simulating the fraction of a standard population that would qualify for benefits. From 1985 to 1996, the fraction of women aged 15 to 44 who were eligible for Medicaid coverage for a pregnancy increased on average by 24 percentage points.  However, contrary to findings in the extant literature, our results do not indicate that this expansion in coverage had a statistically discernible effect on fertility.
ER  -