Health Care Management Papers
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
5-2010
Publication Source
The Journal of Law and Economics
Volume
53
Issue
2
Start Page
379
Last Page
398
DOI
10.1086/648385
Abstract
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs compensates 13 percent of the nation’s military veterans for service‐related disabilities through the Disability Compensation (DC) program. In 2001, a legislative change made it easier for Vietnam veterans to receive benefits for diabetes associated with military service. In this paper, we investigate this policy’s effect on DC enrollment and expenditures as well as the behavioral response of potential beneficiaries. Our findings demonstrate that the policy increased DC enrollment by 6 percentage points among Vietnam veterans and that an additional 1.7 percent experienced an increase in their DC benefits, which increased annual program expenditures by $2.85 billion in 2007. Using individual‐level data from the Veterans Supplement to the Current Population Survey, we find that the induced increase in DC enrollment had little average impact on the labor supply or health status of Vietnam veterans but did reduce labor supply among their spouses.
Recommended Citation
Duggan, M. (2010). Federal Policy and the Rise in Disability Enrollment: Evidence for the Veterans Affairs’ Disability Compensation Program. The Journal of Law and Economics, 53 (2), 379-398. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/648385
Date Posted: 27 November 2017