title: Shock, but no shift: Hospitals' responses to changes in patient insurance mix.
abstract: Medicaid reimburses healthcare providers for services at a lower rate than any other type of insurance coverage. To account for the burden of treating Medicaid patients, providers claim that they must cost-shift by raising the rates of individuals covered by private insurance. Previous investigations of cost-shifting has produced mixed results. In this paper, I exploit a disabled Medicaid expansion where crowd-out was complete to investigate cost-shifting. I find that hospitals reduce the charge rates of the privately insured. Given that Medicaid is expanding in several states under the Affordable Care Act, these results may alleviate cost-shifting concerns of the reform.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, College of Business Administration, Marquette University, David Straz Hall #418, P.O. Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI 53201, USA. Electronic address: kathryn.l.wagner@marquette.edu.
authors.forename: Kathryn L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Wagner
mesh_terms: D004469:Economics, Hospital; D005249:Fees and Charges; D017722:Hospital Charges; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D019458:Insurance Coverage; D007348:Insurance, Health; D008484:Medicaid; D058991:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; D014481:United States
keywords: Cost shifting; Disability; Health insurance; Hospitals; Medicaid