Losing public health insurance: TennCare reform and personal financial distress

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Argys, Laura M.; Friedson, Andrew, I; Pitts, M. Melinda; Tello-Trillo, D. Sebastian
• 署名单位: University of Colorado System; University of Colorado Denver; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Atlanta; University of Virginia
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104202
• 发表日期: 2020
• 关键词: Medicaid; Public assistance; household finance; debt; bankruptcy

摘要

A primary goal of health insurance is smoothing the financial risk associated with health shocks. We estimate the effect of exposure to health-insurance reform on individual-level financial well-being. Utilizing a plausibly exogenous shock to health insurance status resulting from a sudden disenrollment from Tennessee's Medicaid program in 2005, we find that the reform resulted in a 2.78 point decline in credit risk score for an individual in the median county in Tennessee. This study is the first examining the impact of losing any form of public assistance on personal financial well-being and our results inform ongoing discussions around Medicaid reform. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.