the effect of health insurance coverage on the use of medical services

In the effect of health insurance coverage on the use of medical services (NBER Working Paper No. 15823), coauthors michael anderson, carlos Dobkin, and tal Gross exploit the abrupt change in third party coverage that occurs between ages 18 and 19 — the result of young adults “aging out” of their parents’ insurance plans — to estimate the effect of health insurance coverage on the use of medical services. The authors find that “aging out” results in an abrupt 5 to 8 percentage point reduction in the probability of having health insurance, and that not having health insurance leads to a 40 percent reduction in emergency room visits and a 61 percent reduction in inpatient hospital admissions. This study examines data on hospital emergency room use and inpatient visits from hospital censuses in Arizona, California, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin between 1990 and 2007. These data are augmented by information from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS).