Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The national uninsured rate is at an all-time low. One of the provisions that came with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act was the expansion of eligibility requirements for Medicaid. I aim to explain the effect of Medicaid expansion on the uninsured rate. My difference-in-differences model compares the uninsured rate of low-income adults between expansion and non-expansion states. I use the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey single-year estimates, on the two years before expansion and post-expansion. Additionally, estimates from a state’s personal-level file are used to control for individual socioeconomic characteristics. To start, I look at county-level estimates from Minnesota and Wisconsin. Minnesota is a Medicaid expansion state, and Wisconsin is a non-expansion state. For adults with incomes at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty level, the uninsured rate declined both in Minnesota and Wisconsin.