Public Insurance and Mortality: Evidence from Medicaid Implementation
研究发现1960-70年代美国医疗补助计划的引入降低了婴儿和儿童死亡率，高资格州死亡率下降更快，非白人儿童死亡率下降20%。
This paper provides new evidence that Medicaid's introduction reduced infant and child mortality in the 1960s and 1970s. Mandated coverage of all cash welfare recipients induced substantial cross-state variation in the share of children immediately eligible for the program. Before Medicaid, higher- and lower-eligibility states had similar infant and child mortality trends. After Medicaid, public insurance utilization increased and mortality fell more rapidly among children and infants in high-Medicaid-eligibility states. Mortality among nonwhite children on Medicaid fell by 20 percent, leading to a reduction in aggregate nonwhite child mortality rates of 11 percent.