Data and Code for: Out of the Woodwork: Enrollment Spillovers in the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Adam Sacarny, Columbia University. Mailman School of Public Health; Katherine Baicker, University of Chicago. Harris School of Public Policy; Amy Finkelstein, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Version: View help for Version V1

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Project Citation:

Sacarny, Adam, Baicker, Katherine, and Finkelstein, Amy. Data and Code for: Out of the Woodwork: Enrollment Spillovers in the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2022. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2022-07-26. https://doi.org/10.3886/E143081V1

Project Description

Summary: We analyze the impact of expanded adult Medicaid eligibility on the Medicaid enrollment of already-eligible children. To do so, we exploit the 2008 Oregon Medicaid lottery, in which some low-income uninsured adults were randomly selected for the chance to apply for Medicaid. Children in these households were eligible for Medicaid irrespective of whether the household won the lottery. We estimate statistically significant but transitory impacts of adult lottery selection on children’s Medicaid enrollment: for every 9 adults who enroll in Medicaid due to the lottery, one additional child also enrolls at the same time. Our results shed light on the existence, magnitude, and nature of so-called “woodwork effects”.

Funding Sources: United States Department of Health and Human Services. National Institutes of Health. National Institute on Aging (R01-AG034151)

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: health insurance; Medicaid; woodwork effects; spillovers

JEL Classification:
      H51 National Government Expenditures and Health
      I13 Health Insurance, Public and Private
      I38 Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty: Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

Geographic Coverage: Oregon, USA

Time Period(s): 2008 – 2010

Collection Date(s): 2008 – 2010

Universe: Households on Oregon reservation list and/or Medicaid

Data Type(s): program source code

Methodology

Data Source: Oregon Division of Medical Assistance Programs (DMAP). 2016. "Oregon Medicaid Enrollment Data [Dataset]."

Oregon Division of Medical Assistance Programs (DMAP). 2008. "Oregon Health Insurance Experiment Reservation Lists [Dataset]."

The Oregon Health Study Group. 2010. "The Oregon Health Care Survey [Dataset]." Last accessed January 7, 2021. https://www.nber.org/programs-projects/projects-and-centers/oregon-health-insurance-experiment/oregon-health-insurance-experiment-documents.

Unit(s) of Observation: Household, Enrollment spell, Person

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Published Versions

V1 [2022-07-26]

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