The weak health effects of the OHP lottery disappointed policymakers who looked to publicly provided insurance to generate a health dividend for low-income Americans. The fact that health insurance increased rather than decreased expensive emergency department use is especially frustrating. At the same time, panel B of Table 1.6 reveals that health insurance provided the sort of financial safety net for which it was designed. Specifically, households winning the lottery were less likely to have incurred large medical expenses or to have accumulated debt generated by the need to pay for health
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