The Impact of the Medicare Drug Benefit on Health Care Spending by Older Households
December 2008, Dean Baker and Ben Zipperer
This report uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer
Expenditure Survey from 2004 to 2006 as well as data from the
Congressional Budget Office to analyze the savings in prescription drug
spending for seniors as a result of the Medicare Prescription Drug,
Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA). The results show that
the 1st income quintile of seniors experienced a fall in the rate of
expenditures for prescription drugs and the 2nd income quintile saw a
slowing of the rate of increase in expenditures. However, senior
households in the middle- and upper-income quintiles saw a rise in
expenditures for prescription drugs.
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