Briefing
Lifetime Medical Spending of Retirees
Steelman, Aaron; Jones, John Bailey (2019-05)
Retirees face considerable medical expenses during their remaining lives. Model simulations suggest that although a large amount of that spending can be predicted ? based on attributes such as income, health, and marital status ? there remains significant dispersion. Households with heads who turned seventy in 1992 will incur $122,000 in medical spending on average, including out-of-pocket expenditures and Medicaid payments. But the top 5 percent of households will incur more than $300,000 in such spending. The level and dispersion of this spending diminish only slowly with age.
Richmond Fed Economic Brief , Issue May

Journal Article
The Lifetime Medical Spending of Retirees
De Nardi, Mariacristina; Jones, John Bailey; Kirschner, Justin; French, Eric; McGee, Rory (2018-07)
Using dynamic models of health, mortality, and out-of-pocket medical spending (both inclusive and net of Medicaid payments), we estimate the distribution of lifetime medical spending that retired US households face over the remainder of their lives. We find that households who turned 70 in 1992 will, on average, incur $122,000 in medical spending, including Medicaid payments, over their remaining lives. At the top tail, 5 percent of households will incur more than $300,000 and 1 percent of households will incur over $600,000 in medical spending inclusive of Medicaid. The level and the ...
Economic Quarterly , Issue 3Q , Pages 103-135