Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/202893 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
Upjohn Institute Working Paper No. 19-295
Publisher: 
W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Kalamazoo, MI
Abstract: 
In this study, we document the effect of food stamp access on adult health care utilization. While the Food Stamp Program provides one of the largest safety nets in the United States today, the universal nature of the program across geographic areas and over time limits the potential for quasi-experimental analysis. To circumvent this, we use variation in documented immigrants' eligibility for food stamps across states and over time due to welfare reform in 1996. Our estimates indicate that access to food stamps reduced physician visits. Additionally, we find that for single women, food stamps increased the affordability of specialty health care. These findings have important implications for cost-benefit analyses of the Food Stamp Program, as reductions in health care utilization because of food stamps may offset some of the program's impact on the overall government budget owing to the existence of government-provided health insurance programs such as Medicaid.
Subjects: 
Food stamps
immigrants
health care
JEL: 
H51
H53
H75
I11
I18
Q18
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
854.36 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.