It has been more than five decades since President Johnson created Medicaid, but researchers are only now beginning to understand how consequential the program has been for the lives of the American poor.
That is because Medicaid's effects on the children who benefited have persisted long into adulthood. Fifty years after Medicaid became available, children who received health insurance through the program are healthier, living longer and working more, according to a working paper published this week by the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research.
