Insuring Identification: The Effects of Public Healthcare Eligibility on Childhood Disability Diagnosis

Open Access
- Author:
- Bodovski, David
- Area of Honors:
- Economics
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Mark John Roberts, Thesis Supervisor
Russell Paul Chuderewicz, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Disabilities
Disability Diagnosis
Health Policy
Education Policy
Medicaid
CHIP - Abstract:
- Identifying disabilities early on is a crucial part of getting children adequate educational support– undiagnosed disabilities can severely limit educational performance, attainment, and retention. While Federal policy mandates that each school have a mechanism for diagnosing its students with disabilities, disparities in school resource access can limit the ability of underprivileged schools to adequately carry out these procedures. As such, the onus can fall to the parents for getting their children the right diagnosis. This paper examines whether eligibility for income-based public health care programs (Medicaid and CHIP) affects the likelihood that a given child is diagnosed with a disability, giving insight into the role of health care access in providing educational support for children. Using a panel of longitudinal education data tracking elementary schoolers from kindergarten to fifth grade, we employ a series of regression discontinuity designs at state and household-size determined income thresholds for subsidized healthcare eligibility to identify the change in disability identification probability. We find small but generally positive effects of public insurance eligibility on diagnosis probability, indicating potential benefits of insurance coverage in this context. We discuss potential reasons for attenuated estimates, with low variation in actual insurance status (when available) appearing a likely culprit. Both the theory and data suggest that “health policy as education policy” may be a promising, largely unexplored channel for ameliorating inequality, though perhaps not very effective in its current incarnation