ABSTRACT
The share of births financed by Medicaid has been steadily rising in Michigan, contributing to growing program costs. This paper identifies policy approaches that could reduce Medicaid births and their associated costs without reducing healthcare access for low income women. Because there are insufficient data for a time series analysis, this paper uses county-level variation and regression analysis to identify significant correlates of Michigan Medicaid births in 2009. The results, which control for a host of demographic, social and economic variables, indicate that counties with fewer federally funded family planning clinics and in which a greater share of women lack health insurance tend to have higher rates of Medicaid births. The findings indicate that policies to expand access to health insurance and increase the number of family planning clinics could help curb the growth in Medicaid births by helping couples avoid unintended pregnancy.