Lucas Goodman, a fourth-year student in our Ph.D. program, has an article published in the Winter 2017 issue of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, entitled “The Effect of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid Expansion on Migration."

Lucas’ article starts from the fact that some states expanded Medicaid to cover more families after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, while others did not, largely as a function of the political party in power in each state.   Lucas asks whether the resulting difference in availability of Medicaid benefits caused families to move from low-benefit to high benefit states.  Lucas finds that the answer is no:  although benefit differences were very large for families in targeted income ranges, they did not have a statistically or economically significant effect on migration patterns.  Lucas’ findings should alleviate concerns periodically expressed by some state politicians that Medicaid benefit increases will cause their states to become a magnet for low-income migration.

The paper is available here.

Also, an interview with Lucas is available on the Association for Policy Analysis and Management’s website.