Out of the Woodwork: Enrollment Spillovers in the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment

Adam Sacarny, Katherine Baicker () and Amy Finkelstein ()
Additional contact information
Katherine Baicker: Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago
Amy Finkelstein: Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

No 2020-27, Working Papers from Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics

Abstract: We analyze the impact of expanded adult Medicaid eligibility on the Medicaid enrollment of already-eligible children. To do so, we exploit the 2008 Oregon Medicaid lottery, in which some low-income uninsured adults were randomly selected for the chance to apply for Medicaid. Children in these households were eligible for Medicaid irrespective of whether the household won the lottery. We estimate statistically significant but transitory impacts of adult lottery selection on children’s Medicaid enrollment: for every9 adults who enroll in Medicaid due to the lottery, one additional child also enrolls at the same time. Our results shed light on the existence, magnitude, and nature of so-called “woodwork effects†.

JEL-codes: H53 I13 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-ias
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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https://repec.bfi.uchicago.edu/RePEc/pdfs/BFI_WP_202027.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Out of the Woodwork: Enrollment Spillovers in the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment (2022)
Working Paper: Out of the Woodwork: Enrollment Spillovers in the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2020-27

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