Data and Code for: Racial Wealth Inequality and Access to Care with High Deductible Health Insurance

This paper evaluates racial inequalities in healthcare affordability between high-deductible and conventional insurance. Using the 2011-2017 National Health Interview Survey, the study finds that Blacks in high-deductible plans are not disproportionately higher-income nor more engaged in other savings vehicles, unlike their White counterparts, indicating they may be income constrained rather than desiring to partially self-insure. Furthermore, conditional on income, wealth explained more of the racial disparity in healthcare access among high-deductible enrollees than conventional enrollees, consistent with the hypothesis that benefit designs relying on households’ cash reserves would yield greater disparities due to the magnitude of racial inequalities in assets.