How Does Supplemental Medicare Coverage Affect the Disabled Under-65 Population?: An Exploratory Analysis of the Health Effects of States’ Medigap Policies for SSDI Beneficiaries / Philip Armour, Claire O’Hanlon.

By:

Armour, Philip

Contributor(s):

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w25564.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2019.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

Online resources:

Available additional physical forms:

Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers

Abstract: A substantial portion of the costs associated with, and the value to beneficiaries of, Social Security Disability Insurance is Medicare eligibility. However, the benefits of this eligibility can vary due to differences in state policies on supplemental Medicare coverage, also known as Medigap. Although Medigap policies are federally regulated to be issued to 65-and-over Medicare beneficiaries with specific restrictions over underwriting, these policies are left to states to regulate with regard to the under-65 SSDI population, generating substantial cross-state and temporal variation. This paper documents the variation in availability and generosity of under-65 Medigap eligibility for the SSDI population. Furthermore, it exploits this variation to provide initial estimates of how this eligibility affects the health status of non-Medicaid-eligible SSDI recipients. Our main finding is that requiring Medigap plans be offered for under-65 SSDI recipients substantially improves self-reported health of this population, with suggestive evidence that this improvement is stronger as underwriting restrictions increase and among SSDI beneficiaries with mental health conditions. The estimated effect is highly robust to alternative scaling or categorizations of self-reported health, choice of data set, inclusion of fixed effects, controls for local Medicare Advantage penetration, and falsification tests. This effect is nearly three times the size of the estimated increase in self-reported health in the Oregon Medicaid expansion.

Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Holdings
Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w25564 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

Total holds: 0

Collection: Colección NBER Close shelf browser (Hides shelf browser)

Previous	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	Next
Previous	nber w25561 Ambiguity Attitudes about Investments: Evidence from the Field /	nber w25562 Immigration and Preferences for Redistribution in Europe /	nber w25563 The Dynamics of the U.S. Trade Balance and Real Exchange Rate: The J Curve and Trade Costs? /	nber w25564 How Does Supplemental Medicare Coverage Affect the Disabled Under-65 Population?: An Exploratory Analysis of the Health Effects of States’ Medigap Policies for SSDI Beneficiaries /	nber w25565 Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Innovation in the U.S. High-Tech Sector /	nber w25566 Visibility Bias in the Transmission of Consumption Beliefs and Undersaving /	nber w25567 Naïve Buying Diversification and Narrow Framing by Individual Investors /	Next

February 2019.

A substantial portion of the costs associated with, and the value to beneficiaries of, Social Security Disability Insurance is Medicare eligibility. However, the benefits of this eligibility can vary due to differences in state policies on supplemental Medicare coverage, also known as Medigap. Although Medigap policies are federally regulated to be issued to 65-and-over Medicare beneficiaries with specific restrictions over underwriting, these policies are left to states to regulate with regard to the under-65 SSDI population, generating substantial cross-state and temporal variation. This paper documents the variation in availability and generosity of under-65 Medigap eligibility for the SSDI population. Furthermore, it exploits this variation to provide initial estimates of how this eligibility affects the health status of non-Medicaid-eligible SSDI recipients. Our main finding is that requiring Medigap plans be offered for under-65 SSDI recipients substantially improves self-reported health of this population, with suggestive evidence that this improvement is stronger as underwriting restrictions increase and among SSDI beneficiaries with mental health conditions. The estimated effect is highly robust to alternative scaling or categorizations of self-reported health, choice of data set, inclusion of fixed effects, controls for local Medicare Advantage penetration, and falsification tests. This effect is nearly three times the size of the estimated increase in self-reported health in the Oregon Medicaid expansion.