Dahai Yue, UMD Health Policy and Management

Presentation Title: The Impact of Medicare on Life Expectancy

About the Presentation

This paper estimates the causal effects of Medicare on mortality rates and life expectancy among the program’s early recipients. We construct a new dataset of more than 18 million individuals observed in the 1940 census linked to a death record in the FamilyTree database at FamilySearch. We use Medicare’s introduction in 1966 to identify its average treatment effects using three pre-specified approaches: a design based on a simple theoretical model of cohort mortality, an interrupted time-series design, and a staggered difference-in-differences design. All three show that Medicare increases life expectancy at age 65 for men born between 1885 and 1915 by an average of one year. Medicare’s effects on life expectancy at age 65 are larger for cohorts with more potential years of exposure but similar for groups of high and low socio-economic status. The effects for women are not robust across methods and specifications.
 

About the Speaker

Dahai Yue is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management. His overall research focuses on social determinants of health and health policy evaluation. His current research examines the impacts of homelessness, childhood environments, and public health insurance on healthcare utilization and mortality. These ongoing studies apply natural and quasi-experimental study designs with large data sets, including Medicaid administrative data and the Census.

Seminar Format

Location IN PERSON: 2208 LeFrak Hall. We are requesting advanced registration so that we can track capacity.  Please use this link to RSVP for in-person attendance.

Location ONLINE VIA ZOOM: Zoom registration link.  Upon registration, you will receive an automatically generated email with the direct link for the seminar

If accommodations are needed, please send request to meeting organizer (mprc-support@umd.edu) at least 72 hours prior to the event, if possible, to allow time to discuss and implement alternatives.

COVID-19 Information

MPRC public events for Spring 2026 will be a mix of in person and online via Zoom.  For in person events, all event attendees must follow current protocols.