@techreport{NBERw10964,
 title = "Prescription Drugs, Medical Care, and Health Outcomes: A Model of Elderly Health Dynamics",
 author = "Zhou Yang and Donna B. Gilleskie and Edward C. Norton",
 institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research",
 type = "Working Paper",
 series = "Working Paper Series",
 number = "10964",
 year = "2004",
 month = "December",
 URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w10964",
 abstract = {There is much debate about whether the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill -- the greatest expansion of Medicare benefits since its creation in 1965 -- will improve the health of elderly Americans, and how much it will cost. We model how insurance affects medical care utilization, and subsequently, health outcomes over time in a dynamic model with correlated errors. Longitudinal individual-level data from the 1992-1998 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey provide estimates of these effects. Simulations over five years show that expanding prescription drug coverage would increase drug expenditures by between 12% and 17%. However, other health care expenditures would only increase slightly, and the mortality rate would improve.},
}