ACCI Conference 2024

Consumer Movement Archives Applied Consumer Economics Award (Student) Paper Award Winner

This paper explores the effect of 2014 Medicaid expansions on multiple self-reported indicators of financial health for the newly eligible living in the states that expanded Medicaid in 2014. I use data from the National Financial Capability Study (NFCS) 2009-2021, which provides several self-reported indicators of financial health. I estimate models using difference-in-differences (DD) and event study approaches, which utilize the across-state and across-year variations in Medicaid expansions. Similar to existing literature, findings suggest that the 2014 Medicaid expansions substantially increased health insurance coverage and reduced unpaid medical bills in the post-2014 years. Although there were mostly no changes in the other indicators of financial health in the pre-COVID-19 years, findings suggest the newly eligible perceived lower indebtedness and less difficulty in paying for usual expenses in 2021. These findings imply that although public health insurance expansion improves people’s perceptions of some aspects of their finances, it does not affect their overall financial satisfaction.

Author(s): Vivekananda Das