Does uninsurance affect the health outcomes of the insured? Evidence from heart attack patients in California

N. Meltem Daysal

Journal of Health Economics, 2012, vol. 31, issue 4, 545-563

Abstract: In this paper, I examine the impact of uninsured patients on the in-hospital mortality rate of insured heart attack patients. I employ panel data models using patient discharge and hospital financial data from California (1999–2006). My results indicate that uninsured patients have an economically significant effect that increases the mortality rate of insured heart attack patients. I show that these results are not driven by alternative explanations, including reverse causality, patient composition effects, sample selection or unobserved trends and that they are robust to a host of specification checks. The primary channel for the observed spillover effects is increased hospital uncompensated care costs. Although data limitations constrain my capacity to check how hospitals change their provision of care to insured heart attack patients in response to reduced revenues, the evidence I have suggests a modest increase in the quantity of cardiac services without a corresponding increase in hospital staff.

Keywords: Uninsurance; Spillovers; Heart attack 16 mortality; Hospitals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I11 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629612000525
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Does Uninsurance Affect the Health Outcomes of the Insured? Evidence from Heart Attack Patients in California (2012)
Working Paper: Does Uninsurance Affect the Health Outcomes of the Insured? Evidence from Heart Attack Patients in California (2012)
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:eee:jhecon:v:31:y:2012:i:4:p:545-563

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2012.04.004

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Health Economics is currently edited by J. P. Newhouse, A. J. Culyer, R. Frank, K. Claxton and T. McGuire

More articles in Journal of Health Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().