Date of Award

8-2022

Degree Type

Report

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Economics and Finance

Committee Chair(s)

Katarzyna Bilicka

Committee

Katarzyna Bilicka

Committee

Benjamin Blau

Committee

Sherzod Akhundjanov

Abstract

The Affordable Care Act is one of the biggest changes in the American healthcare system in the 21st century. One element of the ACA is medicaid expansion, which opened up federal funding for states to cover any individual earning below 138% of the federal poverty line. 21 states expanded medicaid in 2014 while 12 haven’t expanded. This paper utilizes the disparity for a natural experiment to determine the efficacy of the program. Outcome variables of interest include measurements of individual health, health access and utilization, and premature death rates. The results indicate positive, but small improvements due to the policy, with the only statistically significant results being two measurements of individual health.

Comments

Code used for analysis available at https://github.com/JulietheFoodie/Thesis2022

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