Uninsured Massachusetts households with weak credit before the state's 2006 health insurance expansion benefited most financially because the coverage granted them relief from medical bills, new research shows. These findings suggest similar results may be possible nationwide as the number of uninsured declines.
Notably, benefits were not limited to households with weak credit, said researchers Bhash Mazumder of the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank and Sarah Miller of Notre Dame University, in a recently released working paper. Credit scores improved and bankruptcies declined even among those whose creditworthiness ranked above the Massachusetts median.
Indeed, the analysisanalysis, which drew on financial and insurance data for roughly 380,000 Massachusetts residents before and after the 2006 reform, found that credit scores climbed while overdue bills and bankruptcy declined as health insurance coverage expanded.