The War on Poverty's Experiment in Public Medicine: Community Health Centers and the Mortality of Older Americans
American Economic Review
vol. 105,
no. 3, March 2015
(pp. 1067-1104)
Abstract
This paper uses the rollout of the first Community Health Centers (CHCs) to study the longer-term health effects of increasing access to primary care. Within ten years, CHCs are associated with a reduction in age-adjusted mortality rates of 2 percent among those 50 and older. The implied 7 to 13 percent decrease in one-year mortality risk among beneficiaries amounts to 20 to 40 percent of the 1966 poor/non-poor mortality gap for this age group. Large effects for those 65 and older suggest that increased access to primary care has longer-term benefits, even for populations with near universal health insurance. (JEL H75, I12, I13, I18, I32, I38, J14)Citation
Bailey, Martha J., and Andrew Goodman-Bacon. 2015. "The War on Poverty's Experiment in Public Medicine: Community Health Centers and the Mortality of Older Americans." American Economic Review, 105 (3): 1067-1104. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20120070Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- H75 State and Local Government: Health; Education; Welfare; Public Pensions
- I12 Health Behavior
- I13 Health Insurance, Public and Private
- I18 Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
- I32 Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
- I38 Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty: Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
- J14 Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-labor Market Discrimination