Publication Type
Working Paper
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
10-2018
Abstract
We study the effects of Massachusetts’ healthcare reform on individuals’ subjective well-being. Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, we find that the reform significantly improved Massachusetts residents’ overall life-satisfaction. This result is robust to various sensitivity checks and falsification tests. We find consistent evidence from other healthcare reforms such as the 2014 Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion and the 2005 Tennessee Medicaid disenrollment, supporting our findings’ external validity. Our results provide novel evidence on the psychological consequences of recent healthcare reforms expanding health insurance coverage to the uninsured.
Keywords
health insurance, life satisfaction, happiness, subjective well-being, Massachusetts healthcare reform
Discipline
Economics
Research Areas
Applied Microeconomics
First Page
1
Last Page
43
Citation
KIM, Seonghoon and KOH, Kanghyock.
Did the Massachusetts healthcare reform make people happier?. (2018). 1-43.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/2334
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.