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Home health care and the housing and living arrangements of the elderly

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  • Engelhardt, Gary V.
  • Greenhalgh-Stanley, Nadia

Abstract

Home health care is long-term care, primarily skilled nursing, delivered in a home setting. Its provision may increase the likelihood that the elderly, the vast majority of which are homeowners, can live independently and maintain their desired residential status even if in relatively poor health. We provide empirical evidence on the extent to which home health care benefits affect the housing and living arrangements of the elderly by examining plausibly exogenous changes in the supply of long-term care insurance through the Medicare program that occurred in the late 1990s. Prior to 1997, Medicare reimbursed home health care agencies on a retrospective-cost basis. Then, starting in October, 1997, as a result of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA97), Medicare switched to a system of prospective payments for home health care, which induced state-by-calendar-year variation in the supply of this type of insurance. We exploit this variation to econometrically identify the short-run impact on the housing and living arrangements of the elderly, using CPS data from 1995 to 2000 (before and after the law change). Our estimates indicate that living arrangements are quite responsive to home health care benefits for the widowed, but not for the married elderly. The estimated elasticity of shared living to benefits is -0.9 for the widowed. However, these benefits have little impact on homeownership, at least in the short run, which suggests that the moderately adverse health events toward which public home health care benefits are targeted are not those that drive housing mobility and tenure transitions at advanced ages.

Suggested Citation

  • Engelhardt, Gary V. & Greenhalgh-Stanley, Nadia, 2010. "Home health care and the housing and living arrangements of the elderly," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 226-238, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:67:y:2010:i:2:p:226-238
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    6. Kulander, Maria & Wilhelmsson, Mats, 2020. "What determines the supply of housing for the elderly, and how is it related to the spread of Covid-19 and future demographic changes?," Working Paper Series 20/18, Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Real Estate and Construction Management & Banking and Finance.
    7. Eriksen, Michael D. & Greenhalgh-Stanley, Nadia & Engelhardt, Gary V., 2015. "Home safety, accessibility, and elderly health: Evidence from falls," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 14-24.
    8. Chiara Orsini, 2019. "The mortality effects of changing public funding for home health care: An empirical analysis of Medicare home health care in the United States," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 921-936, July.
    9. Li, Lixing & Wu, Xiaoyu, 2019. "Housing price and intergenerational co-residence in urban China," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-1.
    10. Erin Hye-Won Kim, 2015. "Public transfers and living alone among the elderly," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 32(50), pages 1383-1408.
    11. Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Siew Ling Yew & Thi Minh Thu Nguyen, 2022. "Health status and housing tenure decisions of older Australians," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 50(4), pages 966-989, December.
    12. Costa-Font, Joan, 2017. "“Institutionalization aversion” and the willingness to pay for home health care," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 62-69.

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