Medical insurance does not compensate for job loss by older workers who are hospitalized

Created September 2018

The Economic Consequences of Hospital Admissions

Carlos Dobkin, Amy Finkelstein, Raymond Kluender, Matthew J. Notowidigdo

NBER Working Paper No. 22288

Issued in May 2016, Revised in August 2016

NBER Program(s):Health Care, Public Economics

This study points out the huge loss of income resulting from hospitilization, which is not covered by insurance Analysis is primarily on 2700 adults aged 50-59 for all types of hospitalizations Note: It does not seem to consider those who died in the hospital Vitamin D can sometimes * Prevent the hospitalization * Reduce the stay in the hospital (and thus the deductables and co-pays) * Improve the outcome ==> less likely to lose job --- 1. See also VitaminDWiki * An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure (might Vitamin D be worth several pounds) * Improve your health BEFORE surgery (prehabilitation) helps your recovery - 2018 * Trauma with fracture – 2 weeks longer hospital stay if less than 10 ng vitamin D – Jan 2018 1. Cost savings with Vitamin D includes the following {include}

Age 50-59

We examine some economic impacts of hospital admissions using an event study approach in two datasets: survey data from the Health and Retirement Study, and hospital admissions data linked to consumer credit reports. We report estimates of the impact of hospital admissions on out-of-pocket medical spending, unpaid medical bills, bankruptcy, earnings, income (and its components), access to credit, and consumer borrowing. The results point to three primary conclusions: non-elderly adults with health insurance still face considerable exposure to uninsured earnings risk; a large share of the incremental risk exposure for uninsured non-elderly adults is borne by third parties who absorb their unpaid medical bills; the elderly face very little economic risk from adverse health shocks.

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Tags: Cost savings