Public Health Insurance, Program Take-Up, and Child Health

Anna Aizer ()

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2007, vol. 89, issue 3, pages 400-415

Abstract: Of the ten million uninsured children in 1996, nearly half were eligible for public health insurance (Medicaid) but not enrolled. In response, policy efforts to reduce the uninsured have shifted from expanding Medicaid eligibility to increasing take-up among those eligible. However, little is known about the reasons poor families fail to enroll or the consequences. Using a unique data set I find that information and administrative costs are important barriers to enrollment, especially for Hispanics and Asians. In addition, enrolling children in Medicaid before they get sick promotes the use of preventative care, reduces the need for hospitalization, and improves health. Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Date: 2007
View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/rest.89.3.400 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Public Health Insurance, Program Take-Up, and Child Health (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:restat:v:89:y:2007:i:3:p:400-415

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://mitpress.mit. ... me.tcl?issn=00346535

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Economics and Statistics is edited by Daron Acemoglu, George J. Borjas, Dani Rodrik and Julio J. Rotemberg

More articles in The Review of Economics and Statistics from MIT Press
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().