LAUSR

OBJECTIVE Test whether racial-ethnic disparities in the access and use of care differ between Traditional Medicare (TM) and Medicare Advantage (MA). DATA SOURCE Secondary data from 2015-2018 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS). STUDY DESIGN Measure Black-White and Hispanic-White disparities in access to care and use of preventive services within TM, within MA, and assess the difference-in-disparities between the two programs with and without controls for factors that could influence enrollment, access, and use. DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION Pool 2015-2018 MCBS data and restrict to non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic White, or Hispanic respondents. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Black enrollees have worse access to care relative to White enrollees in TM and MA, particularly for cost-related measures such as not having problems paying medical bills (11-13 pp. lower for Black enrollees; p<0.05) and satisfaction with out-of-pocket costs (5-6 pp. lower; p<0.05). We find no difference in Black-White disparities between TM and MA. Hispanic enrollees have worse access to care relative to White enrollees in TM but similar access relative to White enrollees in MA. Hispanic-White disparities in not delaying care due to cost and not reporting problems paying medical bills are narrower in MA relative to TM by about 4 pp (significant at the p<0.05 level) each. We find no evidence that Black-White or Hispanic-White differences in the use of preventive services differ between TM and MA. CONCLUSIONS Across the measures of access and use studied here, racial and ethnic disparities in MA are not substantially narrower than in TM for Black and Hispanic enrollees relative to White enrollee. For Black enrollees, this study suggests system-wide reforms are required to reduce existing disparities. For Hispanic enrollees, MA does narrow some disparities in access to care relative to White enrollees but, in part, because White enrollees do not do as well in MA as they do in TM.