The role of health insurance in mental health care for young adults

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of health insurance on young adults’ utilization of mental health care, by exploiting the dependent coverage expansion that was an early provision of the Affordable Care Act. Using the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) from 2011 to 2013, we utilize the regression discontinuity design to overcome the problem of endogeneity. There are two key findings. First, health insurance has increased young adults’ mental health care. Second, young adults’ physical health care has not been affected by health insurance. The results suggest that the use of mental health care might be more responsive to changes in health insurance coverage than the use of physical health care is. Furthermore, the effect of health insurance on mental health care utilization is heterogeneous across metal health statuses.