This paper shows that an expansion of public health insurance to children from low-income families reduced the probability of those children going to prison as adults.

My dissertation, summarized in this job market paper, aims to improve our understanding and existing estimates of the effects of public health insurance on near-elderly mortality. Using restricted Census and NVSS data, I examine the effects of Medicare eligibility at age 65 and ACA Medicaid eligibility on near-elderly mortality.

Using hospital financial report data from CMS, I find no evidence that hospitals increased bed capacity, capital expenditures, or full-time staff in response to the ACA Medicaid Expansion.

This joint research project with physicians and researchers from Texas Center for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease aims to be the first to link Texas education and labor data (from the Texas Education Research Center) with medical records. Our research will study the social, academic, and economic trajectories of children with pediatric and congenital heart disease.

A recent CMS price transparency law required hospitals to provide price information for their health services, including cash prices and rates negotiated with insurance companies. This project examines price data compiled from nearly every hospital that has complied with the price transparency law. We compare and contrast hospital prices by health service, insurance type, insurer, and geography. Ariel Johnson and Radhika Patel are aspiring economists who have worked on this project as part of the UT Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program.