TY - JOUR AU - Dave,Dhaval M. AU - Decker,Sandra AU - Kaestner,Robert AU - Simon,Kosali I. TI - Re-examining the Effects of Medicaid Expansions for Pregnant Women JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 14591 PY - 2008 Y2 - December 2008 DO - 10.3386/w14591 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14591 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14591.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Dhaval M. Dave Bentley University Department of Economics 175 Forest Street, AAC 195 Waltham, MA 02452-4705 E-Mail: ddave@bentley.edu Sandra Decker Distinguished Consultant National Center for Health Statistics Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 3311 Toledo Road (Room 6107) Hyattsville, MD 20782 Tel: 301/458-4748 Fax: 301/458-4693 E-Mail: esp4@cdc.gov 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 Kosali I. Simon School of Public and Environmental Affairs Indiana University Rm 443 1315 East Tenth Street Bloomington, IN 47405-1701 Tel: (812) 856-3850 E-Mail: simonkos@indiana.edu AB - This paper analyzes the effect of Medicaid eligibility expansions on the health insurance coverage of women giving birth and on the use of prenatal care and infant health, controlling for year and state effects and state-specific trends that may be correlated with expansions in Medicaid eligibility. We combine estimates from the two sets of analyses to construct estimates of the effect of health insurance on use of prenatal care and infant health. We find that the eligibility expansions reduced the proportion of pregnant women who were uninsured by approximately 10 percent, although this decrease in uninsured came with the expense of a substantial reduction in private insurance coverage. Changes in Medicaid eligibility were associated with very small and statistically insignificant changes in prenatal care use, birth weight, and incidence of low-birth weight. ER -