IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/12848.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Prescription Drug Insurance and Its Effect on Utilization and Health of the Elderly

Author

Listed:
  • Nasreen Khan
  • Robert Kaestner
  • Swu Jane Lin

Abstract

The Medicare Modernization Act was recently established, to provide limited drug coverage to the elderly. However, there is limited evidence on how drug coverage might affect health. The goal of this paper is to obtain "causal effects" of prescription drug coverage on drug use, use of other medical services and health of the elderly. We use fixed-effects analysis to control for unmeasured person-specific effects that may confound the relationships of interest. Results show prescription drug coverage, particularly public coverage, significantly increased the utilization of prescription drugs, but had no discernable effect on hospital admissions or health.

Suggested Citation

  • Nasreen Khan & Robert Kaestner & Swu Jane Lin, 2007. "Prescription Drug Insurance and Its Effect on Utilization and Health of the Elderly," NBER Working Papers 12848, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12848
    Note: AG EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12848.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark G. Duggan, 2003. "Does Medicaid Pay Too Much for Prescription Drugs? A Case Study of Atypical Anti-Psychotics," NBER Working Papers 9626, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Lillard, L.A. & Rogowski, J. & Kington, R., 1999. "Insurance Coverage for Prescription Drugs: Effects on Use and Expenditures in the Medicare Population," Papers 99-09, RAND - Labor and Population Program.
    3. Lillard, L.A. & Rogowski, J. & Kington, R., 1999. "Insurance Coverage for Prescription Drugs: Effects on Use and Expenditures in the Medicare Population," Papers 99-09, RAND - Labor and Population Program.
    4. A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), 2000. "Handbook of Health Economics," Handbook of Health Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    5. Gowrisankaran Gautam & Town Robert & Barrette Eric, 2011. "Managed Care, Drug Benefits and Mortality: An Analysis of the Elderly," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(2), pages 1-32, January.
    6. Cutler, David M. & Zeckhauser, Richard J., 2000. "The anatomy of health insurance," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 563-643, Elsevier.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Munkin M & Trivedi P. K, 2009. "Incentives and Selection Effects of Drug Coverage on Total Drug Expenditure: a Finite Mixture Approach," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 09/22, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    2. Qian Li & Pravin K. Trivedi, 2016. "Adverse and Advantageous Selection in the Medicare Supplemental Market: A Bayesian Analysis of Prescription drug Expenditure," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(2), pages 192-211, February.
    3. Murat K. Munkin & Pravin K. Trivedi, 2010. "Disentangling incentives effects of insurance coverage from adverse selection in the case of drug expenditure: a finite mixture approach," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(9), pages 1093-1108, September.
    4. Boyd H. Gilman & Barbara Gage & Susan Haber & Sonja Hoover & Jyoti Aggarwal, "undated". "Impact of Drug Coverage on Medical Expenditures Among the Elderly," Mathematica Policy Research Reports e75e5879b7284c5d9a80c0074, Mathematica Policy Research.
    5. Melissa Boyle, 2008. "Costs and Benefits of Elderly Prescription Drug Coverage: Evidence from Veterans’ Health Care," Working Papers 0803, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    6. repec:mpr:mprres:5638 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Shen, Yichen & Noguchi, Haruko, 2021. "Impacts of anticancer drug parity laws on mortality rates," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 272(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Erik Schokkaert & Jonas Steel & Carine Van de Voorde, 2017. "Out-of-Pocket Payments and Subjective Unmet Need of Healthcare," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 15(5), pages 545-555, October.
    2. James M. Malcomson, 2004. "Health Service Gatekeepers," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(2), pages 401-421, Summer.
    3. Ellis, Randall P. & Manning, Willard G., 2007. "Optimal health insurance for prevention and treatment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1128-1150, December.
    4. K. P. M. Winssen & R. C. Kleef & W. P. M. M. Ven, 2017. "A voluntary deductible in health insurance: the more years you opt for it, the lower your premium?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 18(2), pages 209-226, March.
    5. Hendrik P. van Dalen, 2006. "When Health Care Insurance does not make a Difference – The Case of Health Care ‘Made in China’," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 06-091/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    6. Karolin Becker & Peter Zweifel, 2008. "Age and Choice in Health Insurance," The Patient: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, Springer;International Academy of Health Preference Research, vol. 1(1), pages 27-40, January.
    7. Clara Pott & Tom Stargardt & Udo Schneider & Simon Frey, 2021. "Do discontinuities in marginal reimbursement affect inpatient psychiatric care in Germany?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 22(1), pages 101-114, February.
    8. Hai Fang & Hong Liu & John Rizzo, 2009. "Has the use of physician gatekeepers declined among HMOs? Evidence from the United States," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 183-195, June.
    9. Andrey Aistov & Ekaterina Aleksandrova & Christopher J. Gerry, 2021. "Voluntary private health insurance, health-related behaviours and health outcomes: evidence from Russia," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 22(2), pages 281-309, March.
    10. Randall Ellis & Elizabeth Savage, 2008. "Run for cover now or later? The impact of premiums, threats and deadlines on private health insurance in Australia," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 257-277, December.
    11. Simón Ramírez Amaya & Adolfo J. Quiroz & Álvaro José Riascos Villegas, 2019. "Regression by clustering using metropolis-hastings," Documentos de Trabajo 18180, Quantil.
    12. Zhou Yang & Donna B. Gilleskie & Edward C. Norton, 2004. "Prescription Drugs, Medical Care, and Health Outcomes: A Model of Elderly Health Dynamics," NBER Working Papers 10964, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Munkin M & Trivedi P. K, 2009. "Incentives and Selection Effects of Drug Coverage on Total Drug Expenditure: a Finite Mixture Approach," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 09/22, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    14. Huang, Shan & Salm, Martin, 2020. "The effect of a ban on gender-based pricing on risk selection in the German health insurance market," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 29(1), pages 3-17.
    15. Agar Brugiavini & Noemi Pace, 2016. "Extending health insurance in Ghana: effects of the National Health Insurance Scheme on maternity care," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 1-10, December.
    16. Lu Ji & Fei Liu, 2007. "HMO versus non-HMO private managed care plans: an investigation on pre-switch consumption," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 67-80, February.
    17. Marton, James & Yelowitz, Aaron & Talbert, Jeffery C., 2014. "A tale of two cities? The heterogeneous impact of medicaid managed care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 47-68.
    18. Patrick Hullegie & Tobias J. Klein, 2010. "The effect of private health insurance on medical care utilization and self‐assessed health in Germany," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(9), pages 1048-1062, September.
    19. Frank R. Lichtenberg, 2007. "Importation And Innovation," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(6), pages 403-417.
    20. Qian Li & Pravin K. Trivedi, 2016. "Adverse and Advantageous Selection in the Medicare Supplemental Market: A Bayesian Analysis of Prescription drug Expenditure," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(2), pages 192-211, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:12848. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.