Medicaid and Provider Supply

One of the main goals of public health insurance expansions is to increase access to health care services, but doing so may require providers to move to previously underserved areas. Whether and to what extent any such relocation occurs remains an open question. I study how providers choose their practice locations in response to Medicaid expansions for one of the most common forms of primary care, dental care services. I find that expansions of adult Medicaid dental benefits increased the number of dentists per capita in poor counties relative to non-poor counties by 12 percent, or 2.6 dentists per 100,000 population. The increase was larger in counties where the expansions generated greater financial incentives for dentists.