TY  - JOUR
T1  - CAution in generalizing part d results to medicare population
AU  - Briesacher BA, Madden JM, Soumerai SB
Y1  - 2011/02/28
N1  - 10.1001/archinternmed.2011.9
JO  - Archives of Internal Medicine
SP  - 365
EP  - 369
VL  - 171
IS  - 4
N2  - 
There may be another reason for the anomalous findings. The investigators excluded a large proportion (approximately 60%) of the original 2005 elderly and Medicare-eligible MEPS sample in order to use a longitudinal study design. Such a large exclusion can significantly and systematically diminish the generalizability of the results to the reference population, in this case Medicare beneficiaries. As a result, other findings in the article by Millet et al1 are also inconsistent with previous research. For instance, Table 1 of their article1 suggests that 44% of the Medicare population did not have drug coverage in 2005 and 19% remained without coverage in 2006, when others put those estimate closer to 24% and 10%, respectively.6 These are not trivial differences, since the magnitude of the effect of Medicare Part D is directly related to levels of drug coverage before and after implementation of the program.

SN  - 0003-9926
M3  - doi: 10.1001/archinternmed.2011.9
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archinternmed.2011.9
ER  -