Study Data from University of Michigan Provide New Insights into Health and Society (Emergency Unemployment Benefits and Health Care Spending During Covid): Health and Medicine – Health and Society

2021 OCT 11 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Current study results on Health and Medicine - Health and Society have been published. According to news reporting originating from Ann Arbor, Michigan, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “To estimate the impact of the $600 per week Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) payments on health care services spending during the Covid pandemic and to investigate if this impact varied by state Medicaid expansion status. This study leverages novel, publicly available data from Opportunity Insights capturing consumer credit and debit card spending on health care services for January 18-August 15, 2020 as well as information on unemployment insurance claims, Covid cases, and state policy changes.”

Financial support for this research came from Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan.

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from the University of Michigan, “Using triple-differences estimation, we leverage two sources of variation-within-state change in the unemployment insurance claims rate and the introduction of FPUC payments-to estimate the moderating effect of FPUC on health care spending losses as unemployment rises. Results are stratified by state Medicaid expansion status. Extraction Methods Not applicable. For each percentage point increase in the unemployment insurance claims rate, health care spending declined by 1.0% (<0.05) in Medicaid expansion states and by 2.0% (<0.01) in nonexpansion states. However, FPUC partially mitigated this association, boosting spending by 0.8% (<0.001) and 1.3% (<0.05) in Medicaid expansion and nonexpansion states, respectively, for every percentage point increase in the unemployment insurance claims rate. We find that FPUC bolstered health care spending during the Covid pandemic, but that both the negative consequences of unemployment and moderating effects of federal income supports were greatest in states that did not adopt Medicaid expansion. These results indicate that emergency federal spending helped to sustain health care spending during a period of rising unemployment.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Yet, the effectiveness of this program also suggests possible unmet demand for health care services, particularly in states that did not adopt Medicaid expansion.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Emergency Unemployment Benefits and Health Care Spending During Covid. Health Services Research, 2021. 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)

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Michael Evangelist, University of Michigan, Poverty Solut, Dept. of Sociology, 500 S State St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, United States. Additional authors for this research include Pinghui Wu and H. Luke Shaefer.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6773.13772. 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.

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