Findings from University of Nevada Update Understanding of Insurance (Restricted Medi-Cal Expansion and Healthcare Usage Among Undocumented Farmworkers): Insurance

2025 DEC 26 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at NewsRx Policy and Law Daily -- Current study results on Insurance have been published. According to news reporting out of Reno, Nevada, by NewsRx editors, research stated, “To evaluate the impact of California’s restricted-scope Medi-Cal program on health insurance coverage and healthcare utilization among undocumented farmworkers. We use a difference-in-differences approach to compare undocumented farmworkers in California-where restricted-scope Medi-Cal was expanded in 2014-with those in other states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) but did not implement a similar program for undocumented workers.”

Funders for this research include U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the University of Nevada, “The analysis exploits nearly a decade of pretreatment data to assess parallel trends. Restricted-access data from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS), covering farmworkers in the United States from 2001 to 2020, the last year for which data is available. We identify undocumented farmworkers in the NAWS and extract information on health insurance coverage and healthcare utilization, including use of hospitals/emergency rooms and private clinics. The results show that following the expansion of restricted scope Medi-Cal, the use of institutional healthcare providers (community health centers, hospitals, and emergency rooms) increased by 8.0 percentage points (95% CI: 0.0044, 0.1564) while the use of private clinics decreased for undocumented farmworkers. This is consistent with an 11.6 percentage points (95% CI: 0.0755, 0.1572) increase in restricted Medi-Cal coverage. We also show that the parallel trend assumption holds, lending support to a causal interpretation.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Our results highlight that restricted Medi-Cal expansion increased access to care.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Restricted Medi-Cal Expansion and Healthcare Usage Among Undocumented Farmworkers. Health Services Research, 2025. Health Services Research can be contacted at: Wiley, 111 River St, Hoboken 07030-5774, NJ, USA. (Wiley-Blackwell - http://www.wiley.com/; Health Services Research - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1475-6773)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Sankar Mukhopadhyay, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada, United States.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6773.70080. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

Publisher contact information for the journal Health Services Research is: Wiley, 111 River St, Hoboken 07030-5774, NJ, USA.

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