This paper measures the effects of subsidies in the Affordable Care Act on adverse financial outcomes using administrative tax data and credit data on financial outcomes. Using a difference-in-differences design with propensity score reweighting, I find that at $100 per capita, ACA premium tax credits and cost-sharing reduction subsidies reduced…

This paper examines the incidence of the cost burden associated with expanding public health insurance to low-income adults in the context of the Affordable Care Act. Using data from the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey (MEPS), I exploit exogenous variation in Medicaid eligibility rules across states, income groups and time. I find that public…

We study how health insurance eligibility affects financial distress for young adults using the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) dependent coverage mandate--the part of the ACA that requires private health insurance plans to cover individuals up to their 26th birthday. We examine the effects of both gaining and losing eligibility by exploiting the…

As we approach the tenth anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, it is important to reflect on what has been learned about the impacts of this major reform. In this paper, we review the literature on the impacts of the ACA on patients, providers, and the economy. We find strong evidence that the ACA's provisions have increased…

This paper examines the labor market effects of state health insurance mandates that increase the cost of employing a demographically identifiable group. State mandates requiring that health insurance plans cover infertility treatment raise the relative cost of insuring older women of child-bearing age. Empirically, wages in this group are…

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is the most significant health policy legislation since Medicare in 1965. The need to address rising health care costs and the lack of health insurance coverage is widely accepted. Health care spending is approaching 17 percent of gross domestic product and yet 45 million Americans remain…

Health disparities related to sexual orientation are well documented and may be due to unequal access to a partner's employer-sponsored insurance (ESI). We provide the literature's first evaluation of legislation enacted by California in 2005 that required private employers within the state to treat employees in committed same-sex relationships in…

We examine the effect of gaining prescription drug insurance, as a result of Medicare Part D, on use of prescription drugs and other medical services for a nationally representative sample of Medicare beneficiaries. Given the heightened importance of prescription drugs for those with chronic illness, we provide separate estimates for elderly in…

From 1991 to 2009, the fraction of Medicaid recipients enrolled in HMOs and other forms of Medicaid managed care (MMC) increased from 11 percent to 71 percent. This increase was largely driven by state and local mandates that required most Medicaid recipients to enroll in an MMC plan. Theoretically, it is ambiguous whether the shift from…

This retrospective reviews the policies that affect the fertility of American women, both policies designed to alter fertility intentionally as well as those that change childbearing unintentionally. Becker's seminal work on the economics of fertility serves as the theoretical foundation for this literature. After describing Becker's economic…

We develop an approach to conducting large-scale randomized public policy experiments intended to be more robust to the political interventions that have ruined some or all parts of many similar previous efforts. Our proposed design is insulated from selection bias in some circumstances even if we lose observations; our inferences can still be…

A fundamental concern with competitive health insurance markets is that they will not supply efficient levels of coverage for treatment of costly, chronic, and predictable illnesses, such as mental illness. Since the inception of employer-based health insurance, coverage for mental health services has been offered on a more limited basis than…

Previous studies suggest access to and satisfaction with care may be different for enrollees in S-CHIP and Medicaid, but it is unclear whether those differences are fully explained by socioeconomic characteristics of the enrollees. We analyze access and satisfaction of three groups of children: Medicaid enrolled, S-CHIP enrolled, and children who…

We evaluate the effects of state policy design features on SCHIP take-up rates and on the degree to which SCHIP benefits crowd out private benefits. The results indicate overall program take-up rates of approximately 10 percent. However, there is considerable heterogeneity across states, suggesting a potential role of inter-state variation in…

We use data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to investigate the impact that child Supplemental Security Income (SSI) enrollment has on household outcomes, including poverty, household earnings, and health insurance coverage. The longitudinal nature of the SIPP allows us to control for unobserved, time-invariant…