Volume 17, Number 2 (Spring) 1982
Link, Charles R., Stephen H. Long, and Russell F. Settle. 1982. "Equity and the Utilization of Health Care Services by the Medicare Elderly." Journal of Human Resources 17(2):195-212.
In their study of physician and hospital utilization in 1969, Davis and Reynolds found that Medicare had failed to eliminate major racial and income-related inequities in the use of medical services by the elderly. Our analysis-which takes advantage of more recent data, an improved model specification, and a more appropriate pooling procedure-reveals that these inequities in utilization had diminished considerably by the mid-1970s. Several hypotheses concerning the underlying demand- and supply-side sources of these equity gains are offered.
Link and Settle are members of the Economics faculty at the University of
Delaware. Long is a member of the Economics and Public Administration faculties
of the Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
* This research was supported by Grant #18-P-97162/2-02 from the Health Care
Financing Administration. The authors gratefully acknowledge the dedicated
research assistance of Jerry Russo and helpful comments by Stanley Masters,
Bruce Stuart, and an anonymous referee.
© 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X