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F2b Medicare and the Use of Dietary Supplements in Older Adults
Key Words
Medicare, Dietary supplement, Health, Regression Discontinuity Design, NHANES
Short Description
The impact of Medicare on health care utilization and health behaviors is widely documented. Although Medicare does not generally provide coverage for dietary supplements, it covers certain vitamins and minerals prescribed by doctors as part of treatment for certain medical conditions. However, whether Medicare increases dietary supplement use is unknown. The increased use of dietary supplements to substitute foods raises a concern because, unlike drugs, the safety and effectiveness of dietary supplement products are not reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before being placed in the market. This study uses data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and regression discontinuity design (RDD) to examine the effect of Medicare on the use of dietary supplements among older adults. The findings provided inconsistent support for the hypotheses that Medicare increases the likelihood and the amount of supplement use. When it did, Medicare was shown to increase the likelihood of supplement use by 27-32 percentage points among older adults. Although most models assessed did not present a statistically-significant causal effect of Medicare, one should note that the coefficients showed the hypothesized signs, and the effect sizes were quite substantial.