The Effects of Continued Enrollment in the Children's Health Insurance Program on Health and Educational Outcomes

Abstract We determine how enrollment in the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) over an extended period of time affects medical and dental care use, health status and academic achievement. In contrast to prior research, which focuses on the program's effects during infancy and early childhood, we examine CHIP enrollment among elementary and middle school students. Using the 1999-2007 panels of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class and an instrumental variables model to address selection bias, we find that an additional year of CHIP enrollment increases the regular use of routine medical care by 16 percent, but has no detectible effects on overall parent-reported health status, obesity or test scores in reading and math.