Table 5.

Simulated Differences in Dental Care Access and Use between Children from Low and High Income Families

		Mean (Low-Income Children)−Mean (High-Income Children)
	If Public Coverage Increased to:	With Effects of Public Coverage Estimated from 2SLS (%)	With Effects of Public Coverage Twice as Big as That Estimated from 2SLS (%)	Current Differences in the Analysis Sample (%)
Unmet dental care need	50%	4.8	3.2	6.4
Last visit ≤6 months	50%	−16.9	−13.7	−20.3
Last visit ≤12 months	50%	−11.9	−7.4	−16.4

Note: The method used in the simulation is the following: Changes in dental access and use are the multiples of the estimated effects of public coverage from 2SLS and the hypothesized 20% increase of public coverage (e.g., −.079 × 0.2 = −.0158 for unmet dental care need). The changes are then added to the sample means to obtain the new levels of dental access and use among low-income children when the public coverage was expanded from 30% to 50% (.1–.0158 = 0.0842 for unmet dental care need). The figures in column 3 are the differences between the new levels of dental access and use among low-income children and that of the high-income children (.0842–.036 = 0.048 for unmet dental care need). In column 4 we double the estimated effects of public coverage from 2SLS.

2SLS, two-stage least squares regressions.