Abstract

The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) was established for the purpose of enhancing children’s health outcomes. A healthier child is equipped with a stronger body that better supports the child’s educational attainment. Through covering expansive benefits and providing financial protection for children who come from low-income families, CHIP offers children better access to health care to meet their medical needs. The goal of this paper is to verify the rationality of retaining and expanding CHIP. This paper will apply the Grossman model and the utility maximization function as a theoretical basis to test if CHIP positively impacts children’s health and school performances. The health production and educational production functions are operationalized to examine the relationships between CHIP and its impact on children’s health and academic achievements. To capture this impact, I will utilize CHIP’s most important characteristics: the eligibility rate and enrollment rate. Evidence from this empirical study suggests that CHIP effectively increases the utilization of medical care for children. However, contrary to my expectation, an increase in the utilization of health care does not lead to higher academic scores.

Advisor

Burnell, Barbara

Department

Business Economics

Disciplines

Maternal and Child Health

Keywords

CHIP, Child Health, Education

Publication Date

2016

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis

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© Copyright 2016 Ke Song