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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

uninsured, Medicare claims, healthcare systems, United States

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Economics

Abstract

My initial research topic was to determine whether individuals who needed longterm care dispersed their assets in order to qualify for Medicaid coverage. In doing this, I hoped to identify the existence of a relationship between asset dispersion and longterm Medicare claims and then quantify the affect of this relationship. However, as is often the case with research, my mentor and I ran into problems. The main problem was that we did not gain access to the newly released data set that linked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data with the Panel Study of Income Dynamics data. Because of this, we shifted our focus to a different aspect of the healthcare system. Given that our government has passed a bill to implement a new universal healthcare system, known as “Obamacare”, I wanted to better understand the impact that such a system would have, financially speaking. To do this, I have used the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey data to develop a financial profile for the typical unemployed American for the period of 20012008. First, I will briefly provide a review of previous literature on the subject. I will then provide a description of the data that is used. Finally, I provide the results, interpret what they mean, and conclude.

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