Existing evidence regarding the effects of Medicaid expansion, largely focused on aggregate effects, suggests health insurance impacts some health, healthcare utilization, and financial hardship outcomes. In this study we apply causal forest and instrumental forest methods to data from the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment (OHIE), to explore heterogeneity in the uptake of health insurance, and in the effects of (a) lottery selection and (b) health insurance on a range of health-related outcomes. The findings of this study suggest that the impact of winning the lottery on the health insurance uptake varies among different subgroups based on age and race. In addition, the results generally coincide with findings in the literature regarding the overall effects: lottery selection (and insurance) reduces out-of-pocket spending, increases physician visits and drug prescriptions, with little (short-term) impact on the number of emergency department visits and hospital admissions. Despite this, we detect quite weak evidence of heterogeneity in the effects of the lottery and of health insurance across the outcomes considered.

العنوان

PLOS ONE

الناشر

the Public Library of Science

بلد الناشر

الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية

Indexing

Scopus

معامل التأثير

3,752

نوع المنشور

Both (Printed and Online)

المجلد

--

السنة

2024

الصفحات

--