% WARNING: This file may contain UTF-8 (unicode) characters. % While non-8-bit characters are officially unsupported in BibTeX, you % can use them with the biber backend of biblatex % usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex} @techreport{NBERw24002, title = "Medicaid and Financial Health", author = "Brevoort, Kenneth and Grodzicki, Daniel and Hackmann, Martin B", institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research", type = "Working Paper", series = "Working Paper Series", number = "24002", year = "2017", month = "November", doi = {10.3386/w24002}, URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w24002", abstract = {This paper investigates the effects of the Medicaid expansion provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on households' financial health. Our findings indicate that, in addition to reducing the incidence of unpaid medical bills, the reform provided substantial indirect financial benefits to households. Using a nationally representative panel of 5 million credit records, we find that the expansion reduced unpaid medical bills sent to collection by $3.4 billion in its first two years, prevented new delinquencies, and improved credit scores. Using data on credit offers and pricing, we document that improvements in households' financial health led to better terms for available credit valued at $520 million per year. We calculate that the financial benefits of Medicaid double when considering these indirect benefits in addition to the direct reduction in out-of-pocket expenditures.}, }