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Medical Spending of the US Elderly

We use data from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) to document the medical spending of Americans aged 65 and older. We find that medical expenses more than double between ages 70 and 90 and that they are very concentrated: the top 10 per cent of all spenders are responsible for 52 per c...

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Autores principales: De Nardi, Mariacristina, French, Eric, Jones, John Bailey, McCauley, Jeremy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6680320/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31404348
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5890.2016.12106
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author De Nardi, Mariacristina
French, Eric
Jones, John Bailey
McCauley, Jeremy
author_facet De Nardi, Mariacristina
French, Eric
Jones, John Bailey
McCauley, Jeremy
author_sort De Nardi, Mariacristina
collection PubMed
description We use data from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) to document the medical spending of Americans aged 65 and older. We find that medical expenses more than double between ages 70 and 90 and that they are very concentrated: the top 10 per cent of all spenders are responsible for 52 per cent of medical spending in a given year. In addition, those currently experiencing either very low or very high medical expenses are likely to find themselves in the same position in the future. We also find that the poor consume more medical goods and services than the rich and have a much larger share of their expenses covered by the government. Overall, the government pays for over 65 per cent of the elderly's medical expenses. Despite this, the expenses that remain after government transfers are even more concentrated among a small group of people. Thus, government health insurance, while potentially very valuable, is far from complete. Finally, while medical expenses before death can be large, on average they constitute only a small fraction of total spending, both in the aggregate and over the life cycle. Hence, medical expenses before death do not appear to be an important driver of the high and increasing medical spending found in the US.
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spelling pubmed-66803202019-08-09 Medical Spending of the US Elderly De Nardi, Mariacristina French, Eric Jones, John Bailey McCauley, Jeremy Fisc Stud Original Articles We use data from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) to document the medical spending of Americans aged 65 and older. We find that medical expenses more than double between ages 70 and 90 and that they are very concentrated: the top 10 per cent of all spenders are responsible for 52 per cent of medical spending in a given year. In addition, those currently experiencing either very low or very high medical expenses are likely to find themselves in the same position in the future. We also find that the poor consume more medical goods and services than the rich and have a much larger share of their expenses covered by the government. Overall, the government pays for over 65 per cent of the elderly's medical expenses. Despite this, the expenses that remain after government transfers are even more concentrated among a small group of people. Thus, government health insurance, while potentially very valuable, is far from complete. Finally, while medical expenses before death can be large, on average they constitute only a small fraction of total spending, both in the aggregate and over the life cycle. Hence, medical expenses before death do not appear to be an important driver of the high and increasing medical spending found in the US. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2016-11-21 2016 /pmc/articles/PMC6680320/ /pubmed/31404348 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5890.2016.12106 Text en © 2016 The Authors. Fiscal Studies published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. on behalf of Institute for Fiscal Studies This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
spellingShingle Original Articles
De Nardi, Mariacristina
French, Eric
Jones, John Bailey
McCauley, Jeremy
Medical Spending of the US Elderly
title Medical Spending of the US Elderly
title_full Medical Spending of the US Elderly
title_fullStr Medical Spending of the US Elderly
title_full_unstemmed Medical Spending of the US Elderly
title_short Medical Spending of the US Elderly
title_sort medical spending of the us elderly
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6680320/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31404348
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5890.2016.12106
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