The Economic Consequences of Hospital Admissions

Carlos Dobkin, Amy Finkelstein, Raymond Kluender, Matthew J. Notowidigdo

NBER Working Paper No. 22288
Issued in May 2016, Revised in August 2016
NBER Program(s):Health Care, Public Economics

We examine some economic impacts of hospital admissions using an event study approach in two datasets: survey data from the Health and Retirement Study, and hospital admissions data linked to consumer credit reports. We report estimates of the impact of hospital admissions on out-of-pocket medical spending, unpaid medical bills, bankruptcy, earnings, income (and its components), access to credit, and consumer borrowing. The results point to three primary conclusions: non-elderly adults with health insurance still face considerable exposure to uninsured earnings risk; a large share of the incremental risk exposure for uninsured non-elderly adults is borne by third parties who absorb their unpaid medical bills; the elderly face very little economic risk from adverse health shocks.

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Acknowledgments and Disclosures

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w22288

Published: Carlos Dobkin & Amy Finkelstein & Raymond Kluender & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2018. "The Economic Consequences of Hospital Admissions," American Economic Review, vol 108(2), pages 308-352. citation courtesy of