Elasticity of Medicaid Access with Respect to State Financial Distress

Victoria Perez, Joseph Benitez and Eric Seiber

AEA Papers and Proceedings, 2018, vol. 108, 384-87

Abstract: In 2016, total Medicaid spending, $574.2 billion, represented one-third of state budgets. Descriptive studies indicate that state policymakers adjust social welfare programs during times of financial distress, particularly Medicaid. The challenge of formally estimating this effect is that macroeconomic shocks increase Medicaid enrollment and state-level financial stress. We use an exogenous measure of Medicaid generosity to estimate the elasticity of Medicaid generosity with respect to financial conditions. We find Medicaid generosity is not adjusted during periods of fiscal distress, whether anticipated or not. Instead, we find a counter-cyclical Medicaid effect with generosity increasing with increases in the unemployment rate.

JEL-codes: E24 H75 I13 I18 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
Note: DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20181107
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20181107 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=6947 (application/zip)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... YtNTSUtdWh5pZ1dCiNAr (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:apandp:v:108:y:2018:p:384-87

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/subscribe.html

Access Statistics for this article

AEA Papers and Proceedings is currently edited by William Johnson and Kelly Markel

More articles in AEA Papers and Proceedings from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().