Data and code for: Prioritizing Benefit? How Low-Income Patients Respond to Prescription Cost-Sharing

This paper measures how cost-sharing impacts older low-income patients, exploiting a discontinuity in eligibility for a prescription drug subsidy for those who lose access to the Medicaid-linked program. Higher drug prices resulting from subsidy loss lead to a 40% reduction in prescription expenditures, driven by a 16% quantity reduction of prescriptions filled. Patients economize on purchases of higher-priced drugs, irrespective of their health benefits. For example, patients reduce insulin purchases by 35%. There is no evidence that cost-sharing prompts switching from branded drugs to generics. This behavior suggests that cost-sharing reduces prescription accessibility without enhancing cost-effectiveness.