Health insurance in the near elderly population

A number of studies have documented the rising number of persons under age 65 who do not have health insurance. This paper focuses on the health insur ance status of near elderly, those persons age 55 through 64. A comparison age group, persons age 45 through 54, is selected for benchmark purposes. U tilizing data from the 1996 Current Population Survey, logistic regression is used to generate insurance status prediction equations for both age grou ps. Household characteristics, income, education and employment are found t o be significant predictors of health insurance status, but fewer-than-expe cted differences are found in comparing equations between the two age group s. Results are discussed in the context of recent proposals to extend Medic are coverage, the effect of Medicare policy changes on the number of near e lderly persons without health insurance, and how prolonged periods of time without health insurance may lead to an increased burden on Medicare as new ly eligible Medicare recipients seek services to address their pent-up dema nd for health care.