Established Evidence Results

Intervention Components (click on component to see a list of all articles that use that intervention): Health Insurance Coverage, Access, Increased Access

Intervention Description: This paper studies the effects of the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative on health insurance coverage, access to care, health care use, and health outcomes. We exploit a difference-in-differences setup that relies on the discontinuities in the program eligibility criteria.

Intervention Results: We find that DACA increased insurance coverage. In states that granted access to Medicaid, the increase was driven by an increase in public insurance take-up. Where public coverage was not available, DACA eligibility increased individually purchased insurance. Despite the increase in insurance coverage, we find small or non-significant increases in health care use. There is some evidence that DACA increased demand for mental health services.

Conclusion: After 2012, DACA-eligible individuals were also more likely to report a usual place of care and less likely to delay care because of financial restrictions. Finally, we find some evidence that DACA improved self-reported health and reduced depression symptoms, indicators of stress and anxiety, and hypertension. These improvements are concentrated among individuals with income below the federal poverty level.

Study Design: We exploit a difference-in-differences setup that relies on the discontinuities in the program eligibility criteria.

Setting: NHIS Survey

Population of Focus: DACA recipients

Sample Size: 246,178 (NHIS)

Age Range: 18-50