MPRC Pilot Project on HIV/AIDS Treatments

Support research and proposal preparation for a project to investigate the lifetime medical costs of HIV/AIDs patients on Medicaid. The research examines the impact of more than two dozen prescription drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat HIV/AIDS on health care spending and health outcomes.  The focus of the project was on individuals diagnosed with HIV and/or AIDS and eligible for health insurance through Medicaid in the state of California.  The Medicaid population is a natural one to consider because more than half of U.S. residents diagnosed with this disease are enrolled in the Medicaid program.  We have used complete claims and eligibility data for a random 24% sample of California Medicaid recipients and this gives us a sample of nearly 4 million individuals with one or more months of Medicaid eligibility during the 1993-2003 period.  Of this group, less than 0.5% is diagnosed with HIV/AIDS during this same period and thus the number of individuals in our analysis sample is considerably smaller at approximately 14,000.