San Diego State University, School of Public Health, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182, United States.
J Health Econ. 2021 Jan;75:102404. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2020.102404. Epub 2020 Nov 23.
Low-income children are less likely to receive recommended health services than their high-income counterparts. This paper examines whether the design of parental Medicaid benefit packages could serve as a mechanism for reducing income-based disparities in unmet health care needs, considering dental benefits as a case study. Leveraging state-level changes to adult dental benefits over time, I find that coverage is associated with increases of 14 and 5 percentage points, respectively, in the likelihood of a recent dental visit among parents and children directly exposed to the policy. Child effects appear to be concentrated among younger children under age 12.
低收入家庭的孩子获得推荐的健康服务的可能性低于高收入家庭的孩子。本文以牙科福利为例，探讨了父母医疗补助计划的设计是否可以成为减少基于收入的未满足医疗需求差距的一种机制。利用各州随时间变化对成人牙科福利的调整，我发现，对于直接受到该政策影响的父母和儿童，最近一次看牙医的可能性分别增加了 14 和 5 个百分点。儿童的影响似乎主要集中在 12 岁以下的年幼儿童身上。
