TY - JOUR AU - Levine,Phillip B. AU - Schanzenbach,Diane Whitmore TI - The Impact of Children's Public Health Insurance Expansions on Educational Outcomes JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 14671 PY - 2009 Y2 - January 2009 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14671 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14671.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Phillip B. Levine Department of Economics Wellesley College 106 Central Street Wellesley, MA 02481 Tel: 781/283-2162 Fax: 781/283-2177 E-Mail: plevine@wellesley.edu Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach School of Education and Social Policy Northwestern University Annenberg Hall, Room 205 2120 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208 Tel: 847/491-3884 E-Mail: dws@northwestern.edu AB - This paper examines the impact of public health insurance expansions through both Medicaid and SCHIP on children's educational outcomes, measured by 4th and 8th grade reading and math test scores, available from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). We use a triple difference estimation strategy, taking advantage of the cross-state variation over time and across ages in children’s health insurance eligibility. Using this approach, we find that test scores in reading, but not math, increased for those children affected at birth by increased health insurance eligibility. A 50 percentage point increase in eligibility is found to increase reading test scores by 0.09 standard deviations. We also examine whether the improvements in educational outcomes can be at least partially attributed to improvements in health status itself. First, we provide further evidence that increases in eligibility are linked to improvements in health status at birth. Second, we show that better health status at birth (measured by rates of low birth-weight and infant mortality), is linked to improved educational outcomes. Although the methods used to support this last finding do not completely eliminate potentially confounding factors, we believe it is strongly suggestive that improving children's health will improve their classroom performance. ER -