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We study healthcare borrowing costs around the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA provides insurance subsidies to low-income residents. States could accept funding to expand Medicaid, although many declined, citing the cost burden. The ACA significantly decreased healthcare borrowing costs after a favorable 2012 Supreme Court ruling. Furthermore, hospital investment spending increased, and investment sensitivity to cash flows decreased. The yield effect was double in Medicaid-expansion states, and insignificant in rural areas which lack insurance competition. Our results highlight how the municipal market can be used to evaluate the heterogeneous effects of public policy and guide a targeted policy approach. This paper examines how local newspaper closures affect public finance outcomes for local governments. Local newspapers in the United States have been steadily declining in recent years, with circulation numbers down approximately 27% from 2003 to 2014. Other studies have shown that the loss of a local newspaper leads to worsened political outcomes in the region, and we illustrate that there are worsened finance outcomes as well. Specifically, following a newspaper closure, municipal borrowing costs increase by 5 to 11 basis points, costing the municipality an additional $650 thousand per issue. Overall, our results indicate that local newspapers hold their governments accountable, keeping municipal borrowing costs low and ultimately saving local taxpayers money. This paper investigates the different state laws for dealing with distressed local governments and the effect of these laws on municipal defaults and borrowing costs. Recent high-profile municipal default cases in Detroit, Puerto Rico, and various cities in California have underscored the importance of defa