Long-Term Care Insurance and the Family

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mommaerts, Corina
• 署名单位: University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/732887
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 1-52
• 关键词: intertemporal behavior; private information; UNITED-STATES; medicaid; HEALTH; income; MARKET; substitutes; RESOURCES; transfers

摘要

This paper examines whether informal care by family members influences the demand for long-term care insurance. Motivated by evidence that the availability of informal caregivers correlates with lower insurance demand and that informal care substitutes for formal care, I estimate a dynamic model of long-term care decisions between an elderly parent and her adult child. The availability of informal care lowers demand for insurance by 7 percentage points and suppresses Medicaid spending. A policy that provides equivalent cash benefits for informal care for such families can generate meaningful increases in insurance demand and family welfare and decreases in Medicaid spending.