The Great Equalizer: Medicare and the Geography of Consumer Financial Strain

Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Maxim Pinkovskiy and Jacob Wallace ()

No 911, Staff Reports from Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Abstract: We use a five percent sample of Americans’ credit bureau data, combined with a regression discontinuity approach, to estimate the effect of universal health insurance at age 65—when most Americans become eligible for Medicare—at the national, state, and local level. We find a 30 percent reduction in debt collections—and a two-thirds reduction in the geographic variation in collections—with limited effects on other financial outcomes. The areas that experienced larger reductions in collections debt at age 65 were concentrated in the Southern United States, and had higher shares of black residents, people with disabilities, and for-profit hospitals.

Keywords: Medicare; heterogeneity; household finances (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46
Date: 2020-01-01
Note: Revised September 2023. Previous title: “Medicare and the Geography of Financial Health”
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Great Equalizer: Medicare and the Geography of Consumer Financial Strain (2023)
Working Paper: The Great Equalizer: Medicare and the Geography of Consumer Financial Strain (2021)
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