Working Paper: NBER ID: w12848
Authors: 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.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: I12; I18; J14
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Prescription drug coverage (H51) | Utilization of prescription drugs (H51) |
| Prescription drug coverage (H51) | Hospital admissions (I19) |
| Prescription drug coverage (H51) | Overall health outcomes (I14) |
| Public insurance (I13) | Annual number of prescriptions (I11) |
| Utilization of prescription drugs (H51) | Health measures (functional disability) (I12) |