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Can Food Stamps help to reduce Medicare spending on diabetes?

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  • Nicholas, Lauren Hersch

Abstract

Diabetes is rapidly escalating amongst low-income, older adults at great cost to the Medicare program. We use longitudinal survey data from the Health and Retirement Study linked to administrative Medicare records and biomarker data to assess the relationship between Food Stamp receipt and diabetes health outcomes. We find no significant difference in Medicare spending, outpatient utilization, diabetes hospitalizations and blood sugar (HbA1c) levels between recipients and income-eligible non-recipients after controlling for a detailed set of covariates including individual fixed effects and measures of diabetes treatment compliance. As one-third of elderly Food Stamp recipients are currently diabetic, greater coordination between the Food Stamp, Medicare, and Medicaid programs may improve health outcomes for this group.

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  • Nicholas, Lauren Hersch, 2011. "Can Food Stamps help to reduce Medicare spending on diabetes?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 1-13, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:9:y:2011:i:1:p:1-13
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    3. Fayaz Farkhad, Bita & Meyerhoefer, Chad D. & Dearden, James A., 2017. "The within-month pattern of medical utilization among SNAP participants," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258361, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Jones, Jordan W. & Courtemanche, Charles & Marton, James, 2018. "The Impacts of the Food Stamp Program on Mortality," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 273845, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Minor, Travis, 2013. "An investigation into the effect of type I and type II diabetes duration on employment and wages," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 534-544.
    6. Lauren A Taylor & Annabel Xulin Tan & Caitlin E Coyle & Chima Ndumele & Erika Rogan & Maureen Canavan & Leslie A Curry & Elizabeth H Bradley, 2016. "Leveraging the Social Determinants of Health: What Works?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-20, August.
    7. Wilson, Norbert L. W. & Zheng, Yuqing & Burney, Shaheer & Kaiser, Harry M., 2016. "Do Grocery Food Sales Taxes Cause Food Insecurity?," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235324, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    8. Gregory, Christian A. & Deb, Partha, 2015. "Does SNAP improve your health?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 11-19.
    9. Nav Persaud & Liane Steiner & Hannah Woods & Tatiana Aratangy & Susitha Wanigaratne & Jane Polsky & Stephen Hwang & Gurleen Chahal & Andrew Pinto, 2019. "Health outcomes related to the provision of free, tangible goods: A systematic review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(3), pages 1-29, March.
    10. Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso & Jales, Hugo B. & Liu, Judith & Wilson, Norbert L., 2023. "Moving Policies Toward Racial and Ethnic Equality: The Case of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1272, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

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