Panel Paper:
The Impact of Health Insurance Provision on the Usage of Preventive Care: Evidence from the ACA
Saturday, April 7, 2018
Butler Pavilion - Butler Board Room (American University)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
This paper uses the dependent coverage extension component of the Affordable Care Act
(ACA) as a natural experiment to study the causal impact of health insurance provision on the
consumption of preventive health care services. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design,
the study reveals that except for blood pressure checks, the policy change had no significant
impact on other forms of preventive care services. Alternative empirical analyses conducted
using difference-in-differences and propensity scores show that the general findings are insensitive
to the choice of econometric methodology. Since the analysis is based on the preventive health
care usage of young adults affected by the policy change, it could be indicative of moral hazard
behavior specific to this age group. A theoretical framework is also devised to gauge the relation
between moral hazard, insurance provision, and the usage of preventive care.
(ACA) as a natural experiment to study the causal impact of health insurance provision on the
consumption of preventive health care services. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design,
the study reveals that except for blood pressure checks, the policy change had no significant
impact on other forms of preventive care services. Alternative empirical analyses conducted
using difference-in-differences and propensity scores show that the general findings are insensitive
to the choice of econometric methodology. Since the analysis is based on the preventive health
care usage of young adults affected by the policy change, it could be indicative of moral hazard
behavior specific to this age group. A theoretical framework is also devised to gauge the relation
between moral hazard, insurance provision, and the usage of preventive care.
