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Title: Medicaid and Ethnic Networks

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2011

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Abstract: Immigrants account for a disproportionate share of the uninsured in the United States. While many low-income immigrants are eligible for Medicaid, languagebarriers often limit their awareness of public assistance. In this paper, we contribute to the previous literature on social networks and public programs using the American Community Survey, which allows us to explore variation across a large number of ethnic groups throughout the U.S. We show that linguistic networks facilitate Medicaid enrollment among non-English speaking adults. Similarto Bertrand et al. (2000), our identifi cation method employs local variation in the density of immigrant populations and nationwide variation in Medicaid participation across ethnic groups. We find Medicaid coverage is greater among potentially eligible immigrants who live in enclaves and whose language group is characterized by a high Medicaid-enrollment rate. Given a hypothetical policy to increase Medicaid enrollment, for every 1 percentage point of direct eff ect, the average network would boost take-up by an additional 0.2 percentage points. Our results are robust to alternative specifications, and we fi nd that networks have greater influence on individuals who are not profi cient in English or who arrived in the United States recently.

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Authors: Gee, Emily R.; Giuntella, G.Osea

Publisher: Boston University

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Health, Migration and Immigration, Other

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