Medicaid Insurance in Old Age

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: De Nardi, Mariacristina; French, Eric; Jones, John Bailey
• 署名单位: University of London; University College London; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; State University of New York (SUNY) System; University at Albany, SUNY
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20140015
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 3480-3520
• 关键词: term-care insurance; Life-cycle model; health-insurance; bequest motives; moral hazard; demand; expenses; retirement; mortality; selection

摘要

The old age provisions of the Medicaid program were designed to insure retirees against medical expenses. We estimate a structural model of savings and medical spending and use it to compute the distribution of lifetime Medicaid transfers and Medicaid valuations across currently single retirees. Compensating variation calculations indicate that current retirees value Medicaid insurance at more than its actuarial cost, but that most would value an expansion of the current Medicaid program at less than its cost. These findings suggest that for current single retirees, the Medicaid program may be of the approximately right size.