TY  - JOUR
AU  - Cogan,John F.
AU  - Hubbard,R. Glenn
AU  - Kessler,Daniel P.
TI  - The Effect of Medicare Coverage for the Disabled on the Market for Private Insurance
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14309
PY  - 2008
Y2  - September 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14309
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14309.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
John Cogan
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CA   94305
Tel: NA
E-Mail: cogan@stanford.edu

R. Glenn Hubbard
Graduate School of Business
Columbia University, 101 Uris Hall
3022 Broadway
New York, NY  10027
Tel: 212/854-3493
Fax: 212/864-6184
E-Mail: rgh1@columbia.edu, ws2187@columbia.edu

Daniel Kessler
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
434 Galvez Mall
Stanford, CA  94305
Tel: 650/723-0596
E-Mail: fkessler@stanford.edu
AB  - Subsidies for health insurance for chronically ill, high-cost individuals may increase coverage in the broader population by improving the functioning of insurance markets.  In this paper, we assess an historical example of a policy intervention of this sort, the extension of Medicare to the disabled, on the private insurance coverage of non-disabled individuals.  We use data on insurance coverage from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from before and after the extension of Medicare to the disabled to estimate the effect of the program on private insurance coverage rates in the broader population.  We find that the insurance coverage of individuals who had a health condition that limited their ability to work increased significantly in states with high versus low rates of disability.  Our findings suggest that that subsidizing individuals with high expected health costs is an effective way to increase the private insurance coverage of other high-cost individuals.
ER  -