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The Effects of State Medicaid Policies on the Dynamic Savings Patterns of the Elderly

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  • Lara Gardner
  • Donna Gilleskie

Abstract

States have considerable flexibility in determining Medicaid policies such as financial eligibility criteria, subsidies for home- and community-based services, and reimbursements rates to skilled nursing facilities, among other things. An understanding of how differences in Medicaid programs across states and time affect the elderlys' demand for Medicaid coverage of long-term care is necessary for evaluating future changes in the Medicaid program structure. We use data from the 1993, 1995, 1998, and 2000 waves of the Asset and Health Dynamics of the Elderly and variation in state Medicaid policies over time to estimate our dynamic framework capturing the sequential asset and gift decisions that determine eligibility for Medicaid. We also model the long-term care decisions of married and single individuals conditional on endogenous insurance coverage and health transitions. To control for the impact of unobserved heterogeneity in all outcomes, the structural equations of the empirical model are estimated jointly, allowing for correlation in the error structure across equations and over time. In this paper we focus on the asset and gifting decisions of the elderly over time. We find that many of the Medicaid policy variables that differ across states have a significant but small effect on the savings decisions of the elderly, with single elderly individuals exhibiting more response than married elderly individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Lara Gardner & Donna Gilleskie, 2006. "The Effects of State Medicaid Policies on the Dynamic Savings Patterns of the Elderly," NBER Working Papers 12208, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12208
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Jonathan Gruber & Aaron Yelowitz, 1999. "Public Health Insurance and Private Savings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(6), pages 1249-1274, December.
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    3. Hoerger, Thomas J & Picone, Gabriel A & Sloan, Frank A, 1996. "Public Subsidies, Private Provision of Care and Living Arrangements of the Elderly," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(3), pages 428-440, August.
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    6. Gruber, J. & Currie, J., 1994. "Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansions of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women," Working papers 94-11, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    7. Ettner, Susan L., 1993. "Do elderly Medicaid patients experience reduced access to nursing home care?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 259-280, October.
    8. Currie, Janet & Gruber, Jonathan, 1996. "Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Changes in the Medicaid Eligibility of Pregnant Women," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(6), pages 1263-1296, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Marianne P. Bitler & Madeline Zavodny, 2014. "Medicaid: A Review of the Literature," NBER Working Papers 20169, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Mariacristina De Nardi & Eric French & John Bailey Jones, 2016. "Medicaid Insurance in Old Age," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(11), pages 3480-3520, November.
    3. Purvi Sevak & Lina Walker, 2007. "The Responsiveness of Private Savings to Medicaid Long Term Care Policies," Working Papers wp150, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    4. Bridget Hiedemann & Michelle Sovinsky & Steven Stern, 2018. "Will You Still Want Me Tomorrow?: The Dynamics of Families’ Long-Term Care Arrangements," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 53(3), pages 663-716.
    5. Lara Gardner & Donna B. Gilleskie, 2012. "The Effects of State Medicaid Policies on the Dynamic Savings Patterns and Medicaid Enrollment of the Elderly," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(4), pages 1082-1127.

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    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty

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