Low take-up in medicaid: does outreach matter and for whom?

摘要

Of the ten million children in the United States who lacked health insurance in 1996, an estimated 4.7 million were eligible for Medicaid but not enrolled (Thomas Selden et al., 1998). In response, federal and state governments have recently devoted up to USD500 million annually to the development of outreach campaigns to increase take-up among those eligible. However, little is known about the reasons families fail to enroll, how to increase enrollment, or whether outreach can work.