NB21-21: RDRC Medicaid Data Initiative: Understanding Racial Disparities among SSI Recipients

The goal of the RDRC Medicaid Data Initiative is to establish an ongoing data development project that will purchase, maintain and make accessible administrative data from the Medicaid program for the purpose of studying racial disparities in health, health care and SSI programmatic outcomes. Because SSI recipients automatically qualify for Medicaid, Medicaid data contain detailed health care and eligibility records for the universe of SSI recipients, as well as demographic information such as race/ethnicity. In the initial project period, we propose to purchase Medicaid data files for calendar years 2018 and 2019. These data will be housed at NBER together with data for years 2016 and 2017, for which purchase is already underway through project NB21-12. By the end of the QT project, the data holdings will consist of four
years’ worth (2016-2019) of longitudinal data files. Each year thereafter, we plan to purchase the most recently released data files with the goal of building a longitudinal data resource that can be used to identify and track racial disparities over time and geography, shed light on their structural origins, and monitor progress towards their elimination. Project activities will be as follows:
• Establish a data use agreement (DUA) with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services (CMS) for the purchase of Medicaid T-MSIS Analytic Files that will be housed at the NBER.
• Receive, set up, and implement data protection and access procedures.
• Explore options for potential data access by other researchers affiliated with the NBER RDRC, SSA, and other RDRCs, and in particular the feasibility of such access while complying with CMS and NBER data use policies.
• Provide SSA with a description of the data and a progress report on the exploration of potential options for expanded data access