Work

Facilitated enrollment in public health insurance: Effects on prenatal care and birth outcomes

Year: 2025

Type: report

Abstract: Many countries are expanding public health insurance for the uncovered, but administrative barriers can reduce enrollments. However, lowering barriers may insure people with marginal health benefits and crowd out services to incumbents. We use novel longitudinal administrative childbirth data to examine the impact of Medical Insurance Century XXI (SMS), a children’s program that auto-enrolled family members in Mexico’s Seguro Popular (SP) health insurance. SMS increased SP coverage among pregnant women, especially those who previously delivered in private hospitals. This group increased the utilization of prenatal care, without significant changes in birth outcomes, and without negative spillover effects on incumbent women. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research

DOI: 10.3386/w34465

Authors: Janet Currie, Lucy Hackett, Fernanda Marquez-Padilla

Institutions: Yale University, University of California, Berkeley, El Colegio de México

Language: English

Topic: Healthcare Systems and Reforms

Subfield: Finance

Field: Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Good health and well-being, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W4416085846

Cites: 1

Cited by:

Related to: 10