Public Health Insurance Take-Up and Labor Supply: Evidence from State Expansions in Coverage to Childless Adults in the Early 2000s

Abstract

This paper considers the effects of public health insurance expansions for low-income childless adults in the early 2000s in a causal framework, prior to passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Using the 1998 through 2007 March Current Population Surveys, my estimates suggest the expansions increased low-educated childless women's public health insurance coverage by 1.6 to 2.5 percentage points, but the results do not provide evidence of a change in public health insurance coverage for low-educated childless men. I do not find any statistically significant negative effects on the labor supply of low-educated childless men or women, despite an increase in take-up for women. While the estimates are imprecise, confidence intervals rule out the possibility of large negative labor supply effects. These results are also supported by event study analyses.