The effect of health insurance coverage on the reported health of young adults

- We exploit the abrupt change in the likelihood of health insurance coverage at age 19.
- At age 19, we find a discontinuous decrease in the likelihood of reporting excellent health.
- The decrease in excellent health is consistent with an increase in reporting very good health.
- Other margins of self-reported health do not seem to be affected.

We exploit a sharp change in the likelihood that an individual is covered by health insurance when he/she turns 19 years of age to study how health insurance affects reported health status. We find that an individual is 6 percentage points less likely to have health insurance when he/she turns 19. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we find that having health coverage significantly increases the likelihood of reporting excellent health among young adults.