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The Effect of Medicaid on Crime: Evidence from the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment

Amy Finkelstein¹; Sarah Miller²; Katherine Baicker³

¹ MIT, NBER, and J-PAL NA [email protected] · ² University of Michigan Ross School of Business and NBER [email protected] · ³ University of Chicago [email protected]

Those involved with the criminal justice system have disproportionately high rates of mental illness and substance-use disorders, prompting speculation that health insurance, by improving treatment of these conditions, could reduce crime. Using the 2008 Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, which randomly made some low-income adults eligible to apply for Medicaid, we find no statistically significant impact of Medicaid coverage on criminal charges or convictions. These null effects persist for high-risk subgroups, such as those with prior criminal cases and convictions or mental health conditions. In the full sample, our confidence intervals can rule out most quasi-experimental estimates of Medicaid’s crime-reducing impact.

DOI

10.1162/rest.a.1625

Pages

1-29

Language

en

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Sources

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