Effect of Medicaid on employment, household spending and health outcomes
Medicaid provides health insurance at no cost or with minimal cost sharing to low-income families, indigent seniors and disabled adults. Access to such health insurance could affect labor market attachment, health and non-health spending and health outcomes. This session presents three papers that analyze behavior and outcomes associated with having access to Medicaid. The first paper uses data from Wisconsin to study the interaction of Medicaid and the labor market. The author studies how Medicaid enrollees are responsive to changes in the marginal cost of transitioning back to work. The second paper aims to understand how Medicaid eligibility affects household spending on health insurance coverage and medical care and on health-related items as cigarettes and alcohol. The final paper examined the effect of Medicaid disenrollment in Tennessee in 2005 on self-rated physical and mental health and mortality.