IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/amjhec/doi10.1086-726534.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Early Opioid Epidemic and Medicaid

Author

Listed:
  • John Anders

Abstract

Is the opioid epidemic attributable to prescription painkillers becoming more accessible? I find that, for an average county, Medicaid expansions under the Affordable Care Act caused approximately 175,000 more opioid units to be prescribed per year, and 4 additional opioid-related deaths per year. Medicaid expansions explain nearly one-sixth of the overall death toll from 2012 to 2016. These results are driven largely by deaths of White men aged 18–65, and vary by local access to marijuana (an opioid substitute). Results are robust to treatment heterogeneity concerns. After estimating the interactive impact of Medicaid expansions and marijuana legalization on opioid-related deaths, I conclude that opioid mortality can be reduced without restricting opioid access.

Suggested Citation

  • John Anders, 2025. "The Early Opioid Epidemic and Medicaid," American Journal of Health Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(1), pages 91-123.
  • Handle: RePEc:ucp:amjhec:doi:10.1086/726534
    DOI: 10.1086/726534
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/726534
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/726534
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/726534?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:amjhec:doi:10.1086/726534. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.