TY - JOUR
T1 - Can Walmart make us healthier? Prescription drug prices and health care utilization
AU - Borrescio-Higa, Florencia
N1 - Funding Information:
I am extremely grateful to Anna Aizer for her guidance and advice. I also thank Ken Chay, Kaivan Munshi, Sriniketh Nagavarapu, Federico Droller, Juan Carlos Gozzi, Innessa Colaiacovo and participants at the Annual Health Economics Conference for their valuable comments and suggestions. Michael Chernew and two anonymous referees provided helpful comments. I am grateful to the Population Studies and Training Center at Brown University for providing financial support and to Matthew Zook for sharing data on Walmart store locations.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2015/12/1
Y1 - 2015/12/1
N2 - This paper analyzes how prices in the retail pharmaceutical market affect health care utilization. Specifically, I study the impact of Walmart's $4 Prescription Drug Program on utilization of antihypertensive drugs and on hospitalizations for conditions amenable to drug therapy. Identification relies on the change in the availability of cheap drugs introduced by Walmart's program, exploiting variation in the distance to the nearest Walmart across ZIP codes in a difference-in-differences framework. I find that living close to a source of cheap drugs increases utilization of antihypertensive medications by 7 percent and decreases the probability of an avoidable hospitalization by 6.2 percent.
AB - This paper analyzes how prices in the retail pharmaceutical market affect health care utilization. Specifically, I study the impact of Walmart's $4 Prescription Drug Program on utilization of antihypertensive drugs and on hospitalizations for conditions amenable to drug therapy. Identification relies on the change in the availability of cheap drugs introduced by Walmart's program, exploiting variation in the distance to the nearest Walmart across ZIP codes in a difference-in-differences framework. I find that living close to a source of cheap drugs increases utilization of antihypertensive medications by 7 percent and decreases the probability of an avoidable hospitalization by 6.2 percent.
KW - Avoidable hospitalizations
KW - Health care utilization
KW - Hospitalizations
KW - Prescription drugs
KW - Walmart
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84942259427&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2015.07.005
DO - 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2015.07.005
M3 - Article
C2 - 26376457
AN - SCOPUS:84942259427
SN - 0167-6296
VL - 44
SP - 37
EP - 53
JO - Journal of Health Economics
JF - Journal of Health Economics
ER -