[PDF] The Interconnected Relationships Of Health Insurance Health And Labor Market Outcomes eBook

Author : Matthew S. Rutledge
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 11,46 MB
Release : 2016
Category :
ISBN :

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The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has greatly increased the proportion of non-elderly Americans with health insurance. One justification for the ACA is that improving individuals' access to health insurance would improve their health outcomes, mostly by increasing the probability that they have a regular source of care. Another is that increasing the availability of health insurance outside of employment reduces the “job lock” that ties poorly matched workers to their jobs only because they want to maintain coverage. This study reviews the literature on the relationships between health insurance and health, between health and work, and between health insurance and labor market outcomes directly. The review uses evidence from recent policy expansions in Oregon and Massachusetts, and among Social Security disability beneficiaries and Medicare enrollees, to evaluate the extent to which expansions have the expected effects on labor market outcomes, indirectly and directly. This paper found that: - Health insurance generally improves health. The gains in mental health are the most consistent across studies, though most studies also find notable improves in physical health measures, including mortality. - Greater health generally allows for increased labor supply, though the strength of this relationship depends crucially on whether the health measure is objective or subjective, the group under consideration, and the study's strategy for accounting for the endogeneity of the relationship. - Expanded access to health insurance increases transitions into self-employment and allows older workers to retire earlier, but the effect on labor force participation, employment, and job mobility is less clear. The policy implications of this paper are: - Coverage expansions, including the ACA, are likely to result in a healthier and more productive pool of potential workers, and this effect is likely to increase labor supply. - But not many studies have examined the full chain of relationships directly, by following recipients of expanded coverage to see if their improved health causally increased labor supply, so further work is needed in evaluating coverage expansions.

Author : Janet Holtzblatt
Publisher : DIANE Publishing
Page : 8 pages
File Size : 15,94 MB
Release : 2010-10
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1437922384

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In the U.S., health insurance (HI) coverage is linked to employment in ways that can affect both wages and the demand for certain types of workers. That close linkage can also affect people¿s decisions to enter the labor force, to work fewer or more hours, to retire, and even to work in one particular job or another. This economic brief shows that the overall impact on labor markets (LM) is difficult to predict. Although economic theory and experience provide some guidance as to the effect of specific provisions, large-scale changes to the HI system could have more extensive repercussions than have previously been observed and also may involve numerous factors that would interact ¿ affecting LM in potentially offsetting ways.

Author : Brigitte Condie Madrian
Publisher :
Page : 34 pages
File Size : 21,95 MB
Release : 2006
Category : Employer-sponsored health insurance
ISBN :

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This paper provides a broad and general overview of the relationship between the U.S. health care system and the labor market. The paper first describes some of the salient features of and facts about the system of health insurance coverage in the U.S., particularly the role of employers. It then summarizes the empirical evidence on how health insurance impacts labor market outcomes such as wages, labor supply (including retirement, female labor supply, part-time vs. full-time work, and formal vs. informal sector work), labor demand (including hours worked and the composition of employment across full-time, part-time and temporary workers), and job turnover. It then discusses the implications of having a fragmented system of health insurance delivery--in which employers play a central role--on the health care system and health care outcomes.

Author : Jonathan Gruber
Publisher :
Page : 106 pages
File Size : 16,18 MB
Release : 1998
Category : Health insurance
ISBN :

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A distinctive feature of the health insurance market in the U.S. is the restriction of group insurance availability to the workplace. This has a number of important implications for the functioning of the labor market, through mobility from job-to-job or in and out of the labor force, wage determination, and hiring decisions. This paper reviews the large literature that has emerged in recent years to assess the impact of health insurance on the labor market. I begin with an overview of the institutional details relevant to assessing the interaction of health insurance and the labor market. I then present a theoretical overview of the effects of health insurance on mobility and wage/employment determination. I critically review the empirical literature on these topics, focusing in particular on the methodological issues that have been raised, and highlighting the unanswered questions which can be the focus of future work in this area.

Author : Institute of Medicine
Publisher : National Academies Press
Page : 381 pages
File Size : 40,28 MB
Release : 1993-02-01
Category : Medical
ISBN : 0309048273

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The United States is unique among economically advanced nations in its reliance on employers to provide health benefits voluntarily for workers and their families. Although it is well known that this system fails to reach millions of these individuals as well as others who have no connection to the work place, the system has other weaknesses. It also has many advantages. Because most proposals for health care reform assume some continued role for employers, this book makes an important contribution by describing the strength and limitations of the current system of employment-based health benefits. It provides the data and analysis needed to understand the historical, social, and economic dynamics that have shaped present-day arrangements and outlines what might be done to overcome some of the access, value, and equity problems associated with current employer, insurer, and government policies and practices. Health insurance terminology is often perplexing, and this volume defines essential concepts clearly and carefully. Using an array of primary sources, it provides a store of information on who is covered for what services at what costs, on how programs vary by employer size and industry, and on what governments doâ€"and do not doâ€"to oversee employment-based health programs. A case study adapted from real organizations' experiences illustrates some of the practical challenges in designing, managing, and revising benefit programs. The sometimes unintended and unwanted consequences of employer practices for workers and health care providers are explored. Understanding the concepts of risk, biased risk selection, and risk segmentation is fundamental to sound health care reform. This volume thoroughly examines these key concepts and how they complicate efforts to achieve efficiency and equity in health coverage and health care. With health care reform at the forefront of public attention, this volume will be important to policymakers and regulators, employee benefit managers and other executives, trade associations, and decisionmakers in the health insurance industry, as well as analysts, researchers, and students of health policy.

Author : Joel C. Cantor
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 193 pages
File Size : 33,55 MB
Release : 2004-07-22
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1135995761

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In this volume, leading American health economists provide a critical assessment of the current state of knowledge of insurance market reform that is accessible to both policy-makers and researchers.

Author : Katherine Swartz
Publisher : Russell Sage Foundation
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 18,15 MB
Release : 2006-05-11
Category : Medical
ISBN : 1610445201

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America's current system of health insurance, which relies almost exclusively on employer-sponsored coverage, is in danger of collapse, and this problem is not limited to the poor and working class. An increasing number of middle class Americans do not have employer-provided insurance and—due to skyrocketing premiums—cannot afford to purchase coverage for themselves. Reinsuring Health, by economist Katherine Swartz, examines this growing national crisis and outlines a concrete plan to make health insurance accessible and affordable for all Americans. Reinsuring Health documents why the number of uninsured Americans—now 45.5 million people—has grown in the last twenty-five years. Swartz focuses on how labor market changes—such as the decline of domestic manufacturing, decreased unionization, and the growth of non-standard work arrangements—have led U.S. employers to retreat from providing health insurance for their workers. These trends, combined with the increasing costs of medical care, have led to an explosion in health insurance premiums and a decline in coverage, particularly among the middle-class. Since those who seek insurance as individuals are generally most likely to need health care, private insurers charge higher premiums in the individual (non-group) markets than to people who obtain group insurance. This makes individual health insurance less attractive to the young and increasingly unaffordable for middle-class Americans. Similarly, insurers charge higher per person (or per family) premiums to small firms than to large companies, so many small firms do not sponsor coverage for their employees. Reinsuring Health shows how these problems can be overcome if the federal government provides a new reinsurance program which would protect insurance companies that provide small group and individual health insurance against the possibility that their policy-holders will incur very high medical expenses. By assuming some of the risk that people will face extremely costly medical bills, the government will make insurers less hesitant to offer coverage to high-risk individuals, and will help drive down premiums for others. Reinsuring Health demonstrates that this form of government reinsurance has worked in the past, helping to establish smooth running private markets for catastrophe insurance and secondary mortgages. Today, growing numbers of middle class Americans lack health insurance. Protection against the possibility of falling ill or getting hurt and having to pay extraordinary health care bills should not be a luxury available only to the very rich and the very poor. Reinsuring Health proposes a straightforward solution that would bring health insurance back within the reach of the increasing ranks of the uninsured, particularly those who are in the middle class.

Author : Mark V. Pauly
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
Page : 204 pages
File Size : 27,75 MB
Release : 1999-06-04
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780472086443

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Who really pays for health benefits? An accessible explanation of the economic theory behind this question

Author : Naoki Aizawa
Publisher :
Page : 43 pages
File Size : 43,63 MB
Release : 2020
Category : Employer-sponsored health insurance
ISBN :

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Abstract: We study regulations on the health insurance system for working-age U.S. households, consisting of employer-sponsored health insurance (ESHI), individual health insurance exchange (HIX), and Medicaid. We develop and estimate an equilibrium model with rich heterogeneity across local markets, households, and firms, which highlights the inter-relationship between various components of the health insurance system as well as their relationship with the labor market. We estimate the model exploiting variations across states and policy environments before and after the Affordable Care Act. In counterfactual experiments, we consider policies to cross subsidize between ESHI and HIX, which include pure risk pooling between the two markets as a special case. We find such policies would benefit most households, improve average household welfare, and decrease government expenditure. Furthermore, the welfare gains are larger if the cross subsidization is interacted with Medicaid expansion