Insurance disruption due to spousal Medicare transitions: implications for access to care and health care utilization for women approaching age 65.

To assess whether a husband's Medicare transition leads to insurance disruptions for his wife that impact her perceived access to care, health care utilization, or health status.Respondents were married women under age 65 from the 2003-2005 round of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (N=655).Instrumental variable (IV) linear and IV-probit analyses provided unbiased estimates of the effect of an insurance disruption on study outcomes. The instrument was the husband's age: (1) women with husbands who transitioned to Medicare within the previous year (age 65-66); (2) women with husbands who did not transition (60

VIVO