The Impact of Medicaid Expansion on Voter Participation: Evidence from the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment

Katherine Baicker and Amy Finkelstein

Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 2019, vol. 14, issue 4, 383-400

Abstract: In 2008, a group of uninsured low-income adults in Oregon was selected by lottery for the chance to apply for Medicaid. Using this randomized design and state administrative data on voter behavior, we analyze how a Medicaid expansion affected voter turnout and registration. We find that Medicaid increased voter turnout in the November 2008 Presidential election by about 7% overall, with the effects concentrated in men (18% increase) and in residents of Democratic counties (10% increase); there is suggestive evidence that the increase in voting reflected new voter registrations, rather than increased turnout among pre-existing registrants. There is no evidence of an increase in voter turnout in subsequent elections, up to and including the November 2010 midterm election.

Keywords: Medicaid; voting; political participation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00019026 (application/xml)

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:now:jlqjps:100.00019026

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Quarterly Journal of Political Science from now publishers
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lucy Wiseman ().