The Medicaid Program

Thomas Buchmueller (), John Ham and Lara Shore-Sheppard

No 21425, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In both its costs and the number of its enrollees, Medicaid is the largest means-tested transfer program in the United States. It is also a fundamental part of the health care system, providing health insurance to low-income families, indigent seniors, disabled adults and, in some states, low-income adults more broadly. This paper reviews the history and structure of the Medicaid program and the large body of economic research that it has spawned in the nearly half century since it was established. We begin by summarizing the program’s history, goals and current rules. We then present program statistics, mainly related to enrollment and expenditures. Finally we turn to the research on the impact of Medicaid on a broad range of outcomes, discussing theoretical and methodological issues important for understanding these effects and reviewing the empirical literature, describing what has been learned thus far, investigating areas where studies seem to reach different conclusions and pointing to areas where we believe additional research would be fruitful.

JEL-codes: I11 I13 I18 I3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-his and nep-ias
Note: CH EH LS PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Published as The Medicaid Program , Thomas Buchmueller, John C. Ham, Lara D. Shore-Sheppard. in Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 1 , Moffitt. 2016

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w21425.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: The Medicaid Program (2015)
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:nbr:nberwo:21425

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w21425

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().