Timothy Waidmann

Timothy Waidmann
Urban Institute · Health Policy Center

PhD

About

84
Publications
6,107
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4,829
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Publications

Publications (84)
Article
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Asthma is a common, potentially serious childhood chronic condition that disproportionately afflicts Black children. Hospitalizations and emergency department (ED) visits for asthma can often be prevented. Nearly half of children with asthma are covered by Medicaid, which should facilitate access to care to manage and trea...
Article
Objective: This study estimates associations of regional change in opioid prescribing with total suicide deaths and suicide overdose deaths involving opioids. Methods: A panel analysis was performed with 2009-2017 U.S. national IQVIA Longitudinal Prescription Database data and National Center for Health Statistics mortality data aggregated into...
Article
Objective: To examine geographic variation in preventable hospitalizations among Medicaid/CHIP-enrolled children and to test the association between preventable hospitalizations and a novel measure of racialized economic segregation, which captures residential segregation within ZIP codes based on race and income simultaneously. Data sources: We...
Article
Background Rising opioid-related death rates have prompted reductions of opioid prescribing, yet limited data exist on population-level associations between opioid prescribing and opioid-related deaths.Objective To evaluate population-level associations between five opioid prescribing measures and opioid-related deaths.DesignAn ecological panel ana...
Article
Full-text available
The new millennium brought renewed attention to improving the health of women and children. In this same period, direct deaths from conflicts have declined worldwide, but civilian deaths associated with conflicts have increased. Nigeria is among the most conflict‐prone countries in Sub‐Saharan Africa, especially recently with the Boko Haram insurge...
Article
Discussion of growing inequity in U.S. life expectancy increasingly focuses on the popularized narrative that it is driven by a surge of “deaths of despair.” Does this narrative fit the empirical evidence? Using census and Vital Statistics data, we apply life-table methods to calculate cause-specific years of life lost between ages 25 and 84 by sex...
Article
Full-text available
The new millennium brought renewed attention to improving the health of women and children. In this same period, direct deaths from conflicts have declined worldwide, but civilian deaths associated with conflicts have increased. Nigeria is among the most conflict-prone countries in sub-Saharan Africa, especially recently with the Boko Haram insurge...
Preprint
Full-text available
Recent research has found, in some groups of Americans, dramatic increases in deaths due to drug overdose and suicide and an overall stagnation of trends toward increased longevity. This study examines the link between mortality of older working age (45 to 64) adults and local economic downturns in the U.S. to evaluate the role of economic shifts i...
Article
Full-text available
Recent research has found, in some groups of Americans, dramatic increases in deaths due to drug overdose and suicide and an overall stagnation of trends toward increased longevity. This study examines the link between mortality of older working age (45 to 64) adults and local economic downturns in the U.S. to evaluate the role of economic shifts i...
Article
Full-text available
Using a novel data set from a major credit bureau, we examine the early effects of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions on personal finance. We analyze less common events such as personal bankruptcy, and more common occurrences such as medical collection balances, and change in credit scores. We estimate triple-difference models that compare...
Article
Full-text available
Background One hundred eighty six nations have adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), one of which, SDG 3.2, aims to reduce under-5 mortality to 25 deaths per thousand in all countries by 2030. Achieving this goal is daunting for many African countries, where child mortality remains high. Research around the world and over time has shown...
Article
Full-text available
Independent researchers have reported an alarming decline in life expectancy after 1990 among US non-Hispanic whites with less than a high school education. However, US educational attainment rose dramatically during the twentieth century; thus, focusing on changes in mortality rates of those not completing high school means looking at a different,...
Article
We examine how access to care and care experiences under the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) compared to private coverage and being uninsured in 10 states. We report on findings from a 2012 survey of CHIP enrollees in 10 states. We examined a range of health care access and use measures among CHIP enrollees. Comparisons of the experience...
Article
To provide updated information on the potential substitution of public for private coverage among low-income children by examining the type of coverage held by children before they enrolled in Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and exploring the extent to which children covered by CHIP had access to private coverage while they were enrolled...
Article
We examine how access to and use of oral and dental care under the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) compared to private coverage and being uninsured in 10 states. We report on findings drawn from a 2012 survey of CHIP enrollees in 10 states. We examined a range of parent-reported dental care access and use measures among CHIP enrollees. C...
Article
Full-text available
While increased life expectancy in the U.S. has been used as justification for raising the Social Security retirement ages, independent researchers have reported that life expectancy declined in recent decades for white women with less than a high school education. However, there has been a dramatic rise in educational attainment in the U.S. over t...
Article
Full-text available
Over the last 25 years the Social Security Disability Insurance Program (DI) has grown dramatically. During the same period of time employment rates for men with work limitations showed substantial declines in both absolute and relative terms. While the timing of these trends suggests that the expansion of DI was a major contributor to employment d...
Article
Over the past decade, prescription drug expenditures grew faster than any other service category and comprised an increasing share of per capita health spending. Using the 2005 and 2009 Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys, this analysis identifies the sources of spending growth for prescription drugs among the nonelderly population. We find that pres...
Article
Over the past decade, health care spending increased faster than GDP and income, and decreasing affordability is cited as contributing to personal bankruptcies and as a reason that some of the nonelderly population is uninsured. We examined the trends in health care affordability over the past decade, measuring the financial burdens associated with...
Article
Since the mid-1980s there has been dramatic growth in the number and fraction of DI and SSI beneficiaries with mental illness. With longer life expectancies and younger ages of disability onset than beneficiaries with physical impairments, their growth exerts added fiscal pressure on the programs. While not specifically focused on mental illness, f...
Article
Full-text available
This study is the first to offer a detailed look at the burden of medical out-of-pocket spending, defined as total family medical out-of-pocket spending as a proportion of income, for each state. It further investigates which states have greater shares of individuals with high burden levels and no Medicaid coverage but would be Medicaid eligible un...
Conference Paper
This paper explores variations in Medicaid spending and utilization of services by program enrollees treated for mental health conditions. Again using the CAMOD Medicaid population, MAX data were examined to compare and contrast changes and examine the mix of care in the use of inpatient, ambulatory care, prescription drugs and long-term care over...
Conference Paper
This study analyzed whether disabled cash-assisted Medicaid-only beneficiaries (CAMODs) in high-spending Medicaid spending areas have better outcomes than their counterparts in lower spending areas. In particular, Waidmann assessed whether CAMODs living in areas with higher spending for ambulatory care and other acute care services (prescription dr...
Article
Full-text available
This article updates trends from five national U.S. surveys to determine whether the prevalence of activity limitations among the older population continued to decline in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Findings across studies suggest that personal care and domestic activity limitations may have continued to decline for those ages 85...
Article
Full-text available
The nearly nine million people who receive Medicare and Medicaid benefits, known as dual eligibles, constitute one of the nation's most vulnerable and costly populations. Several initiatives authorized by the Affordable Care Act are intended to improve the health care delivered to dual eligibles and, at the same time, to achieve greater control of...
Article
Full-text available
The increase in undocumented immigration between 1999 and 2007 contributed to an increase in the number of uninsured people in the United States. During this period, the number of undocumented immigrants increased from an estimated 8.5 million to 11.8 million, leading to an estimated additional 1.8 million uninsured. These uninsured and undocumente...
Article
Elderly people and younger people with disabilities who are eligible for health coverage through both Medicare and Medicaid ("dual eligibles") are among the sickest and poorest people in the United States. Dual eligibles' extensive needs for medical and long-term care are often complicated by a perplexing and inefficient system of overlapping benef...
Article
To estimate the relationship between variations in medical spending and health outcomes of the elderly. 1992-2002 Medicare Current Beneficiary Surveys. We used instrumental variable (IV) estimation to identify the relationships between alternative measures of elderly Medicare beneficiaries' medical spending over a 3-year observation period and heal...
Article
Full-text available
We estimated national and state-level potential medical care cost savings achievable through modest reductions in the prevalence of several diseases associated with the same lifestyle-related risk factors. Using Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component data (2003-2005), we estimated the effects on medical spending over time of reduction...
Article
Over the last 25 years the Social Security Disability Insurance Program (DI) has grown dramatically. During the same period of time employment rates for men with work limitations showed substantial declines in both absolute and relative terms. While the timing of these trends suggests that the expansion of DI was a major contributor to employment d...
Article
In this paper we used the Health and Retirement Study to examine the health and economic status of those who collect Social Security retirement benefits prior to the full retirement age. We used a propensity score reweighting method to estimate the fraction of early retirees who use early retirement benefits as a safety net against deteriorating he...
Article
Full-text available
This paper explores options for reforming Medicare cost sharing in an effort to provide better financial protection for those beneficiaries with the greatest health care needs. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS), we consider how unified annual deductibles, alternative coinsurance...
Article
Full-text available
This paper explores options for reforming Medicare cost sharing in an effort to provide better financial protection for those beneficiaries with the greatest health care needs. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS), we consider how unified annual deductibles, alternative coinsurance...
Article
There are about 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States and more that 50 percent of them are uninsured. However, health care reform has explicitly excluded this group from any of the eligibility expansions or subsidies that will be available to expand insurance coverage. This almost certainly assures that coverage and access problem...
Article
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Although geographic differences in Medicare spending are widely considered to be evidence of program inefficiency, policymakers need to understand how differences in beneficiaries' health and personal characteristics and specific geographic factors affect the amount of Medicare spending per beneficiary before formulating policies to reduce geograph...
Article
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The Medicare Savings Programs (MSPs) are designed to provide financial assistance to Medicare beneficiaries who do not qualify for full Medicaid coverage. This paper considers changes in eligibility that would better align MSP program rules with those related to receiving low-income subsidies for the Medicare Part D drug benefit. These changes woul...
Article
We estimate the magnitude of any direct effect of retirement on health. Since retirement is endogenous to heath, it is not possible to estimate this effect by comparing the health of individuals before and after they retire. As an alternative we use institutional features of the pension system in the United Kingdom that are exogenous to the individ...
Article
Full-text available
The Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) system is designed to provide income security to workers in the event that health problems prevent them from working. In order to qualify for benefits, applicants must pass a medical screening that is intended to verify that the individual is truly incapable of work. Past research has shown, however,...
Article
In this paper, we specify a dynamic programming model that addresses the interplay among health, financial resources, and the labor market behavior of men in the later part of their working lives. Unlike previous work which has typically used self reported health or disability status as a proxy for health status, we model health as a latent variabl...
Article
To investigate the consequences of endogeneity bias on the estimated effect of having health insurance on health at age 63 or 64, just before most people qualify for Medicare, and to simulate the implications for total and public insurance (Medicare and Medicaid) spending on newly enrolled beneficiaries in their first years of Medicare coverage. Th...
Article
Although the prevalence of late-life disability has been declining, how best to promote further reductions remains unclear. This article develops and then demonstrates an approach for comparing the effects of interventions on the prevalence of late-life disability. We review evidence for three potentially high-impact strategies: physical activity,...
Article
In this paper, we specify a dynamic programming model that addresses the interplay among health, financial resources, and the labor market behavior of men in the later part of their working lives. The model is estimated using data from the Health and Retirement Study. We use the model to simulate the impact on behavior of raising the normal retirem...
Article
Full-text available
In September 2002, a technical working group met to resolve previously published inconsistencies across national surveys in trends in activity limitations among the older population. The 12-person panel prepared estimates from five national data sets and investigated methodological sources of the inconsistencies among the population aged 70 and old...
Article
We introduce a new hybrid approach to joint estimation of Value at Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES) for high quantiles of return distributions. We investigate the relative performance of VaR and ES models using daily returns for sixteen stock market indices (eight from developed and eight from emerging markets) prior to and during the 2008 fi...
Article
Differences in health status across different race and ethnic groups in the United States, particularly between black and white Americans, have been the subject of considerable medical and social science research. For instance, numerous studies using a variety of health measures have shown the health of black men and women to be worse than that of...
Article
During the 1990s, while overall employment rates for working-aged men and women either remained roughly constant (men) or rose (women), employment rates for people with disabilities fell. During the same period the fraction of the working-aged population receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) benefits increased quite dramatically. We p...
Article
Providers of obstetrical services in the United States account for a disproportionately large share of physicians' liability claims and payments. The authors conducted the first national assessment of how malpractice liability pressure, as measured by insurance premiums, might affect the use of prenatal care. Effects on two measures of infant healt...
Article
In this paper we conduct the first national evaluation of the effect of malpractice liability pressure, as measured by malpractice premiums, on prenatal care utilization and infant health. Our results indicate that a decrease in malpractice premiums that would result from a feasible policy reform would lead to a decrease in the incidence of late pr...
Article
We calculated population-level estimates of mortality, functional health, and active life expectancy for black and white adults living in a diverse set of 23 local areas in 1990, and nationwide. At age 16, life expectancy and active life expectancy vary across the local populations by as much as 28 and 25 years respectively. The relationship betwee...
Article
We calculated population-level estimates of mortality, functional health, and active life expectancy for black and white adults living in a diverse set of 23 local areas in 1990, and nationwide. At age 16, life expectancy and active life expectancy vary across the local populations by as much as 28 and 25 years respectively. The relationship betwee...
Article
Health disparities among racial and ethnic groups have a long history and continue to exist in the United States. The U.S. government has established as a goal for the year 2010 the elimination of racial/ethnic health differences in six areas. This article examines disparities in one of those areas: access to high-quality health care. Several measu...
Article
This article used a new data source to examine the issue of disability trends among elderly persons and examined the potential implications of these trends on future health and long-term care needs. We used the 1992-1996 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey to examine time trends in rates of activities of daily living and instrumental activities of...
Article
Health disparities among racial and ethnic groups have a long history and continue to exist in the United States. The U.S. government has established as a goal for the year 2010 the elimination of racial/ethnic health differences in six areas. This article examines disparities in one of those areas: access to high-quality health care. Several measu...
Article
Full-text available
I study a budget-constrained, private-valuation, sealed-bid sequential auction with two incompletely-informed, risk-neutral bidders in which the valuations and income may be non-monotonic functions of a bidder's type. Multiple equilibrium symmetric bidding functions may exist that differ in allocation, efficiency and revenue. The sequence of sale a...
Article
We estimate the impact of fertility-timing on the chances that children in poor urban African American communities will have surviving and able-bodied parents until maturity. To do so, we use census and vital statistics data to compute age- and sex-specific rates of mortality and functional limitation among prime-aged adult residents of impoverishe...
Article
A longstanding issue in the health care industry is whether physicians' malpractice fears lead to defensive medicine. We use national birth certificate data from 1990 through 1992 to conduct a county fixed-effects analysis of the impact of malpractice claims risk on cesarean-section rates and infant health. Malpractice claims risk is measured by ob...
Article
An important factor in that carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) materials are not widely used in civil and offshore application, is the lack of generally applicable design criteria for composite structures. This is particularly true in the case of buckling strength prediction of composite shell structures, where many problems are left to the des...
Article
To describe variation in levels and causes of excess mortality and temporal mortality change among young and middle aged adults in a regionally diverse set of poor local populations in the USA. Using standard demographic techniques, death certificate and census data were analysed to make sex specific population level estimates of 1980 and 1990 deat...
Article
This paper addresses the interplay between health and labor market behavior in the later part of the working life. We use the longitudinal Health and Retirement Survey to analyze the dynamic relationship between health and alternative labor force transitions, including labor force exit, job change and application for disability insurance. Specifica...
Article
Recent fiscal pressures on Medicare and an already enacted increase in Social Security's normal retirement age have generated discussion of raising Medicare's age of entitlement. This DataWatch examines potential impacts of raising Medicare's eligibility age to sixty-seven on public-sector health spending and individual insurance coverage. The prop...
Article
This article uses the Asset and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old (AHEAD) study to examine the extent to which observed differences in the prevalence of chronic conditions and functional limitations between Black and White adults (aged 70+) in the United States can be attributed to differences in various aspects of socioeconomic status (SES) bet...
Article
Although the general relations between race, socioeconomic status, and mortality in the United States are well known, specific patterns of excess mortality are not well understood. Using standard demographic techniques, we analyzed death certificates and census data and made sex-specific population-level estimates of the 1990 death rates for people...
Article
We used the first wave of the Health and Retirement Survey to study the effect of health on the labor force activity of black and white men and women in their 50s. The evidence we present confirms the notion that health is an extremely important determinant of early labor force exit. Our estimates suggest that health differences between blacks and...
Article
The Czech Republic is facing a population ageing phenomenon. In addition, its demographic structure is expected to change dramatically over the next 50 years. We apply a stylised overlapping generation model in order to analyse the potential effects of the expected demographic changes on aggregate economic performance taking into account alternativ...
Article
Full-text available
Chile has been at the forefront of pension reform, having switched in 1980 from a pay-as-you-go system to a fully funded privatized accounts system. The Chilean system served as a model for reform in many other Latin American countries and has also been considered by U.S. policy makers as a possible prototype for social security reform. Some of the...
Article
The authors use trends in self-reported disability to gauge the impact of the growth of disability transfer programs on the labor force attachment of older working-aged men. The authors' tabulations suggest that between 1949 and 1987, about half of the 4.9 percentage point drop in the labor force participation of men aged 45-54 and between one quar...
Thesis
Concentrating on two types of social insurance programs, Social Security Disability Insurance and Workers' Compensation, the essays which constitute this dissertation seek to contribute to the empirical literature on social insurance in two important areas. First, most of the existing literature identifies the relationship between benefit levels an...
Article
We used multiple waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to relate nursing home use, asset transfers, and Medicaid coverage. We examined the timing of these events to provide insight on the likelihood that asset transfers might have been utilized for the purpose of gaining Medicaid covered nursing home care. Our findings indicate that relati...
Article
At 40 percent of Medicare's and of Medicaid's costs, 1 the 9 million dual eligibles, 2 who receive benefits from both programs, are a focus of efforts to slow growth in entitlement spending. But, given the two programs' responsibilities, policy-makers are relying far too heavily on states to find the solution. Dollars spent on dual eligibles are ov...
Article
Concentrating on two types of social insurance programs, Social Security Disability Insurance and Workers' Compensation, the essays which constitute this dissertation seek to contribute to the empirical literature on social insurance in two important areas. First, most of the existing literature identifies the relationship between benefit levels an...

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