Medicare guarantees health insurance coverage for any person 65 or older. However, Medicare coverage is not complete and the additional costs are substantial: for example, the hospital deductible for part A is $956 and the part B deductible amounts to $123 in 2006. The elderly can insure against...

There is tremendous interest in understanding the effects of welfare reform enacted by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. Our interest lies in one possible consequence of welfare reform: the loss of health insurance.This paper advances the literature by...

Nearly 30 percent of Americans age 65 and older supplement their Medicare health insurance through the Medigap private insurance market. We show that prices for Medigap policies vary widely, despite the fact that all plans are standardized, and even after controlling for firm heterogeneity....