More doctors in town now? Evidence from Medicaid expansions

Abstract

We examine how physicians’ practice locations are affected by Medicaid expansions. We focus on the dramatic Medicaid eligibility expansions for pregnant women that took place between the early 1980s and the early 1990s. Following a recently-developed estimation strategy, we identify the change in OB/GYN supply due to the expansions in an event-study framework. We find that OB/GYN counts per capita grew post-expansion and the increase persisted for years. Our results are mainly driven by early-career OB/GYNs and concentrated in densely populated or poor counties. Our results show that Medicaid coverage rules could be an important determinant of physician location choice.