Medicaid Expansion and the Unemployed

Thomas Buchmueller (), Helen Levy () and Robert Valletta
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Helen Levy: https://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/people/profile/670/Helen_Levy

No 2019-29, Working Paper Series from Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Abstract: We examine how a key provision of the Affordable Care Act—the expansion of Medicaid eligibility—affected health insurance coverage, access to care, and labor market transitions of unemployed workers. Comparing trends in states that implemented the Medicaid expansion to those that did not, we find that the ACA Medicaid expansion substantially increased insurance coverage and improved access to health care among unemployed workers. We then test whether this strengthening of the safety net affected transitions from unemployment to employment or out of the labor force. We find no meaningful statistical evidence in support of moral hazard effects that reduce job finding or labor force attachment.

Keywords: Medicaid; access to care; unemployment; insurance coverage; labor force transitions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 A13 I13 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57
Date: 2019-12-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-ias
Note: Prepared for presentation at “Defense against the Dark Arts: A labor economics conference in honor of John E. DiNardo,” University of Michigan, September 28-29, 2018. Financial support for this project from the Russell Sage Foundation is gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the authors and are not attributable to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or the Federal Reserve System.
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Related works:
Journal Article: Medicaid Expansion and the Unemployed (2021)
Working Paper: Medicaid Expansion and the Unemployed (2019)
Working Paper: Medicaid Expansion and the Unemployed (2019)
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DOI: 10.24148/wp2019-29

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