Related Experiment Videos
How well does Medicaid work in improving access to care?
Sharon K Long1, Teresa Coughlin, Jennifer King
1Health Policy Center, The Urban Institute, Washington, DC 20037, USA.
Health Services Research
|January 25, 2005
Summary
Medicaid significantly improves healthcare access and use for low-income mothers compared to being uninsured. Medicaid coverage provides access comparable to private insurance, challenging previous research findings.
Area of Science:
- Health Services Research
- Public Health Policy
- Health Economics
Background:
- Medicaid is a crucial public health insurance program for low-income populations in the United States.
- Understanding Medicaid's impact on healthcare access and utilization is vital for policy evaluation.
- Previous studies have yielded mixed results, potentially due to methodological limitations in accounting for insurance selection.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the effectiveness of the Medicaid program in enhancing healthcare access and utilization for low-income mothers.
- To compare the impact of Medicaid on access and use against private insurance and being uninsured.
- To address selection bias in insurance status to provide a more accurate estimation of Medicaid's benefits.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from the 1997 and 1999 National Survey of America's Families.
- Included state and county information from the Area Resource File and other sources.
- Employed instrumental variables methods to control for selection into insurance status, comparing Medicaid, private insurance, and uninsured groups for mothers below 200% federal poverty level.
Main Results:
- Medicaid significantly improved healthcare access and use compared to being uninsured.
- After controlling for insurance selection, Medicaid's benefits over being uninsured were substantially larger than previously estimated.
- Medicaid beneficiaries' access and use were comparable to the low-income privately insured when selection was controlled for.
Conclusions:
- The Medicaid program effectively enhances healthcare access and utilization for low-income mothers, achieving parity with private insurance.
- Controlling for selection bias reveals that Medicaid's positive impact is greater than previously understood.
- Prior research likely underestimated Medicaid's gains relative to uninsurance and overstated private coverage's gains relative to Medicaid due to a lack of selection controls.