TY  - JOUR
AU  - Blau,David M.
AU  - Gilleskie,Donna B.
TI  - The Role of Retiree Health Insurance in the Employment Behavior of Older Men
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10100
PY  - 2003
Y2  - November 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10100
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10100.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David Blau
Department of Economics
Ohio State University
445 Arps Hall
1945 N. High St.
Columbus, OH 43210-1172
E-Mail: blau.12@osu.edu

Donna B. Gilleskie
Department of Economics
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
CB #3305, 6B Gardner Hall
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3305
Tel: 919/966-5372
Fax: 919/966-4986
E-Mail: donna_gilleskie@unc.edu
AB  - We model the employment and medical care decisions of older men who face health risk. The budget constraint incorporates detailed characteristics of health insurance as well as Social Security and private pensions. A man whose health insurance is tied to continued employment with his current employer faces the risk of large medical expenditures in the event of an adverse health shock if he retires before becoming eligible for Medicare at age 65. A man whose employer provides retiree health insurance or who has access to other health insurance not tied to his employment decision (e.g., from his wife) can retire before age 65 without consequences for his health insurance coverage. We use data from the Health and Retirement Survey to estimate the parameters of the model using structural methods. Simulations based on the estimates imply that changes in health insurance, including access and restrictions to retiree health insurance and Medicare have a modest impact on employment behavior among older males.
ER  -