Centre for Policy on Ageing



Are healthier older adults choosing managed care?
Author(s)	Gail A Jensen, Michael A Morrisey
Journal title	The Gerontologist, vol 44, no 1, February 2004
Pages	pp 85-94
Source	http://www.geron.org
Keywords	Health insurance ; Usage [services] ; Good Health ; Consumer choice ; Social surveys ; United States of America.
Annotation	In the US, do older workers and early retirees avoid managed care plans; and are health plan (i.e. health insurance) choices linked to the health status of workers or their spouses? Using responses of those born between 1931 and 1941 to the 1994 and 1998 waves of the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS), the authors find that among older workers with active worker coverage, 60% were enrolled in either a health maintenance organisation (HMO) or a preferred provider organisation in 1998; and 42% of early retirees were enrolled in these plans. Those with a choice of plans were even more likely to be in managed care. Health status has little bearing on an older worker's choice of health plan. Theses findings suggest that older workers choose plans much as younger workers do. Employers are more likely to continue to offer managed care as their workers age. Many workers are choosing an insurance type early in employment and remain with that type of plan as they age. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-040726202 A
Classmark	WPG: QLD: CD: WYC: 3F: 7T
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.