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To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2007.10.009 Byline: Ithai Zvi Lurie Keywords: Permanent resident; Non-permanent resident; Welfare reform; Chilling effect Abstract: The 1996 Welfare Reform Act tightened public health-insurance coverage restrictions for non-permanent residents (NPRs) and altered the eligibility of newly permanent residents (PRs). By drawing on data from the SIPP, this paper explores to what extent welfare reform led to a decline in health-insurance coverage for children of NPRs. This paper proposes that the proportion of uninsured children of NPRs with low social economic status (SES) increased by approximately 10 percentage points relative to their PR counterparts. Furthermore, although eligible for Medicaid, citizen children of NPRs of low SES lost approximately 17 percentage points in coverage. Author Affiliation: Office of Tax Analysis, U.S. Department of the Treasury, 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W., Washington, DC 20220, USA Article History: Received 27 December 2006; Revised 11 October 2007; Accepted 18 October 2007 Article Note: (footnote) [star] The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Treasury.