TY  - JOUR
AU  - Aizer,Anna
AU  - Grogger,Jeffrey
TI  - Parental Medicaid Expansions and Health Insurance Coverage
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9907
PY  - 2003
Y2  - August 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9907
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9907.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Anna Aizer
Brown University
Department of Economics
64 Waterman Street
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: 401/863-9529
Fax: 401/863-1970
E-Mail: anna_aizer@brown.edu

Jeffrey Grogger
Irving B. Harris Professor of Urban Policy
Harris School of Public Policy
University of Chicago
1155 E. 60th Street
Chicago, IL   60637
Tel: 773/542-3533
Fax: 773/702-0926
E-Mail: jgrogger@uchicago.edu
AB  - During the 1990s many states extended Medicaid eligibility to low-income parents who were not receiving welfare. We evaluate the effects of those expansions on health insurance coverage. To account for unobservable differences between expansion states and non-expansion states that may be correlated with both policy decisions and insurance coverage, we employ a within-state difference-in-difference technique that makes use of data only from expansion states. We find that the parental eligibility expansions increased Medicaid coverage of mothers with only small effects on private coverage. The expansions also increased the coverage of children, presumably by raising the benefit to the family of applying for coverage. We find substantial racial and ethnic differences in the effects of the expansions. As a result, the expansions help reduce racial and ethnic gaps in insurance coverage, particularly for adults.
ER  -