Master of Arts, Miami University, 2020, Economics
Medicaid is a joint federal-state health insurance program targeting the low-income population. The program covers nearly 20% of Americans and accounted for $592 billion in 2017. Medicaid was originally introduced in 1965 as an optional program without mandatory financial eligibility minimums. By 1982, all 50 states had established a program but at vastly different levels of eligibility. In this paper, I analyze the factors that impacted a state's adoption of Medicaid and the factors affecting eligibility generosity for pregnant women, infants, children, and other adults. I find that politics and health environment factors were insignificant in explaining the adoption of Medicaid. However, with respect to eligibility, these same health environment and political factors become significant in explaining differential levels of eligibility generosity. In both models, demographic factors provide conflicting evidence to support the basic ideas of the Median Voter Theorem. Regression findings for adoption and eligibility generosity are generally robust across models. Finally, future work might examine eligibility generosity for other populations benefiting from Medicaid or apply the models to a variety of optional benefits.
Committee: Melissa Thomasson (Advisor); Gregory Niemesh (Committee Member); Austin Smith (Committee Member)
Subjects: Economic History; Economics; Health Care; Political Science; Public Policy