Racial differences in health care use among medicare only and dual eligibles

It has been an important financial issue in the U.S. Medicare expenditures that health care expenses of Medicaid-Medicare dual eligibles (MMDE) are much higher than those of Medicare only beneficiaries (MOB). This paper compares health care use and health status of MMDEs and MOBs who are either Afro-American or white recipients. Using total health care use information from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) 2000, we find that the proportion of dual eligibles with chronic health conditions is higher by 4% than that of the Medicare only beneficiaries and that dual eligibles make more frequent uses of various health care services. The number of office-based physician visits and outpatient physician visits are higher for Afro-American dual eligibles than white dual eligibles. This finding seems to be contributed to by relatively high medical needs among dual eligibles. Higher utilization of agency-related home health services among Afro-American dual eligibles than among white dual eligibles is considered as a consequence of different ethnicity-specific responses to insurance coverage.