A long-standing assumption among economists is that nursing home quality is common across Medicaid and private-pay patients within a shared facility. However, there has been only limited empirical work addressing this issue. Using a unique individual-level panel of residents of nursing homes from seven states, we exploit both within-facility and within-person variation in payer source and quality to examine this issue. We also test the robustness of these results across states with different Medicaid and private-pay rate differentials. Across various identification strategies, our results are consistent with the assumption of common quality across Medicaid and private-paying patients within facilities.

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Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2008
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