IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/amjhec/v3y2017i3p281-311.html

The Long-Term Effect of Health Insurance on Near-Elderly Health and Mortality

Author

Listed:
  • Bernard Black

    (Northwestern University, Pritzker School of Law and Kellogg School of Management)

  • José-Antonio Espín-Sánchez

    (Yale University, Department of Economics)

  • Eric French

    (University College London, Department of Economics, and Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago)

  • Kate Litvak

    (Northwestern University, Pritzker School of Law)

Abstract

We use the best available longitudinal data set, the Health and Retirement Study, and a battery of causal inference methods to provide both central estimates and bounds for the long-term effect of health insurance on health and mortality among the near-elderly (initial age 50–61) over a 20-year period. Compared with matched insured persons, those uninsured in 1992 consume fewer health-care services, but their health (while alive) does not deteriorate relative to the insured, and, in our central estimates, they do not die significantly faster than the insured. Our upper and lower bounds suggest that prior studies have greatly overestimated the health and mortality benefits of providing health insurance to the uninsured.

Suggested Citation

  • Bernard Black & José-Antonio Espín-Sánchez & Eric French & Kate Litvak, 2017. "The Long-Term Effect of Health Insurance on Near-Elderly Health and Mortality," American Journal of Health Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(3), pages 281-311, Summer.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:amjhec:v:3:y:2017:i:3:p:281-311
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1162/AJHE_a_00076
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fitzpatrick, Maria D. & Moore, Timothy J., 2018. "The mortality effects of retirement: Evidence from Social Security eligibility at age 62," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 121-137.
    2. Black, Bernard & French, Eric & McCauley, Jeremy & Song, Jae, 2024. "The effect of disability insurance receipt on mortality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    3. Borgschulte, Mark & Vogler, Jacob, 2020. "Did the ACA Medicaid expansion save lives?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    4. Arenas, Erika & Parker, Susan W. & Rubalcava, Luis & Teruel, Graciela, 2023. "Impact of health insurance on adult mortality in rural areas: Evidence of Seguro Popular in Mexico using panel data," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 30(C).
    5. Anup Malani & Phoebe Holtzman & Kosuke Imai & Cynthia Kinnan & Morgen Miller & Shailender Swaminathan & Alessandra Voena & Bartosz Woda & Gabriella Conti, 2021. "Effect of Health Insurance in India: A Randomized Controlled Trial," Working Papers 2021-055, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    6. Rebecca M. Myerson & Reginald D. Tucker‐Seeley & Dana P. Goldman & Darius N. Lakdawalla, 2020. "Does Medicare Coverage Improve Cancer Detection and Mortality Outcomes?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(3), pages 577-604, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:amjhec:v:3:y:2017:i:3:p:281-311. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.