The Effect of Medicare Eligibility on Spousal Insurance Coverage
研究配偶获得医保资格如何影响年轻配偶的保险覆盖和医疗使用，发现年轻配偶失去雇主保险、转向更差的私人保险，并可能减少医疗服务使用。
A majority of married couples in the USA take advantage of the fact that employers often provide health insurance coverage to spouses. When older spouses become eligible for Medicare, however, many of them can no longer provide their younger spouses with coverage. In this paper, we study how spousal eligibility for Medicare affects the health insurance and health care access of younger spouses. We find that spousal eligibility for Medicare results in younger spouses no longer having employers pay for their insurance and being less likely to have employer-sponsored coverage. Instead, younger spouses switch to privately purchased coverage, which tends to be worse than what they had before their spouses became eligible for Medicare. We also find suggestive evidence that younger spouses are less likely to use health care services after their older spouses become eligible for Medicare.