About one-quarter of disabled workers under age 65 who start receiving Social Security disability income (SSDI) are uninsured during the two years they must wait to obtain Medicare benefits, according to a study published March 25 on the Health Affairs web site. Employers cover about half of those in the waiting period. Federal legislators have introduced bills to eliminate the waiting period during each of the last two Congresses.
Using longitudinal data from the University of Michigan’s Health and Retirement Study, the researchers followed through time a randomly selected, nationally representative sample of Americans born during the period 1936-41. By tracking each individual’s health insurance from age 55 to age 65, they found that half of the people who lacked insurance during the Medicare waiting period were uninsured before they began receiving SSDI.
Rather than eliminating the waiting period entirely, Congress might consider eliminating it only for disabled workers without access to employer-sponsored insurance, the researchers suggest. Read the abstract.
