Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/202809 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 12463
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study the effects of losing insurance on behavioral health – mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) – community hospitalizations. We leverage variation in public insurance eligibility offered by a large-scale Medicaid disenrollment. Losing insurance decreased SUD-related hospitalizations but mental illness hospitalizations were unchanged. Use of Medicaid to pay for behavioral health hospitalizations declined post-disenrollment. Mental illness hospitalization financing shifted to private insurance, Medicare, and patients, while SUD treatment financing shifted entirely to patients. We investigate implications of reliance on data that is not representative at the level of the treatment variable and propose a possible solution.
Subjects: 
healthcare
community hospitalizations
insurance
mental illness
substance use disorders
data quality
JEL: 
I1
I11
I18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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