Does Medicaid managed care affect access to care for the uninsured?

This study investigates whether the implementation of Medicaid managed care from 1994 to 2001 was associated with changes in access to care for the uninsured. We used regression analysis to examine relationships between changes in county-level Medicaid managed care activity over time and changes in four measures of perceived access to care. After we controlled for sex, race, ethnicity, poverty, age, health, and education and included county fixed effects to account for unobserved county characteristics that are potentially associated with the implementation of Medicaid managed care and outcome measures, we found that Medicaid managed care has had no consistent effect on access.