Impact of Medicare Age Eligibility on Health Spending among U.S. and Foreign-Born Adults

Objective Examine differences in health care expenditures between foreign‐born and U.S.‐born adults in late mid‐life, and how these differences change after age 65, when Medicare is near‐universal. Data Medical Expenditures Panel Survey data (2000–2010) on adults ages 55–75 years (n = 46,132) to examine annual total and payer‐specific expenditures. Study Design We use (1) propensity score matching to generate quasi‐experimental samples with equivalent health needs and health care preferences, (2) generalized linear modeling to estimate group differences in expenditures, and (3) bootstrapping methods to obtain variance estimates for significance testing. Principal Findings Among adults ages 55–64, the foreign‐born spend $3,314 (p