Children’s public health insurance and scholastic success

Abstract

There are currently two public health insurance options available to United States children, Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The programmes are similar in that they both target improvements in children’s health through increased access to medical care. A well-developed body of literature has examined the effect these programmes have on a child’s health and to a large extent has found that the programmes perform as desired. This article uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort to determine whether access to public health insurance translates to an improvement in a child’s academic performance.