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The Health Effects of Medicare for the Near-Elderly Uninsured

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Author Info
Daniel Polsky
Jalpa A. Doshi
Jose Escarce
Willard Manning
Susan M. Paddock
Liyi Cen
Jeannette Rogowski

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Abstract

We study how the trajectory of health for the near-elderly uninsured changes upon enrolling into Medicare at the age of 65. We find that Medicare increases the probability of the previously uninsured having excellent or very good health, decreases their probability of being in good health, and has no discernable effects at lower health levels. Surprisingly, we found Medicare had a similar effect on health for the previously insured. This suggests that Medicare helps the relatively healthy 65 year olds, but does little for those who are already in declining health once they reach the age of 65. The improvement in health between the uninsured and insured were not statistically different from each other. The stability of insurance coverage afforded by Medicare may be the source of the health benefit suggesting that universal coverage at other ages may have similar health effects.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 12511.

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Date of creation: Sep 2006
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12511

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped

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This page was last updated on 2009-12-18.

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