How Do States Formulate Medicaid and SCHIP Policy? Economic and Political Determinants of State Eligibility Levels

Jeffrey Milyo and Reagan Baughman

No 813, Working Papers from Department of Economics, University of Missouri

Abstract: We exploit the existence of substantial variation in state policies toward public health insurance for children between 1990 and 2002 to estimate the economic and political determinants of state eligibility levels. Controlling for state and year effects, eligibility levels are not significantly associated with either the percentage of uninsured children in the state or the eligibility policy of neighboring states; further, variation in eligibility levels within state is negatively associated with both the federal matching rate and state fiscal capacity. We also observe that state political preferences, measured by the Democrats share of seats in the lower chamber of the state legislature, are a relatively important a determinant of state eligibility levels. However, other political factors, such as party control of state government, voter turnout, legislative term limits and campaign finance regulations do not influence state eligibility levels.

Keywords: Medicaid; SCHIP; Political Economy; Race-to-the-Bottom (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 H75 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pgs.
Date: 2008-10-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-ias and nep-pol
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:umc:wpaper:0813

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