Mandating Insurance Offers for Low-Wage Workers: An Evaluation of Labor Market Effects (original) (raw)
Related papers
1997
As of 1978, the favorable tax treatment of fringe benefits, including health insurance, has been regulated via a nondiscrimination clause such that low-wage, full-time workers must be offered health insurance (and other benefits) that are offered to higher-wage workers by the firm. Part-time workers may be excluded from coverage, however, creating incentives for firms to hire some types of workers part time to deny them coverage. We hypothesize that firms will hire fewer workers whose relative costs have increased, ...
Government mandates and employer-sponsored health insurance: who is still not covered?
International journal of health care finance and economics, 2002
We characterize employer-sponsored health insurance offering strategies in light of benefit non-discrimination and minimum wage regulation when workers have heterogeneous earnings and partially unobservable demand for (and cost of) insurance. We then empirically examine how earnings and expected medical expenses are associated with low wage workers' ability to obtain insurance before and after enactment of federal benefit non-discrimination rules. We find no evidence that the non-discrimination rules helped low wage workers (especially those with high own or children's expected medical expenses) to obtain insurance.
LABOR MARKET EFFECTS OF EMPLOYER-PROVIDED HEALTH INSURANCE
Economic Inquiry, 2007
This is an experimental study in economics of mandated benefits. Most individuals who have health insurance in the US obtain it through their employer. Some states either have or are considering government mandates that require employers to provide insurance to all full-time workers. We use an experimental laboratory to investigate possible effects of alternative health insurance regulations on the competitive labor market performance. We find that mandating the insurance for all workers creates labor market distortions; whereas mandating the insurance only for full-time workers leads to a higher coverage then under no mandate, an increased number of part-time workers, but does not necessarily lower market efficiency.
Health Services Research, 2013
ObjectiveTo estimate 2012 tax expenditures for employer‐sponsored insurance (ESI) in the United States and to explore the sensitivity of estimates to assumptions regarding the incidence of employer premium contributions.Data SourcesNationally representative Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data from the 2005–2007 Household Component (MEPS‐HC) and the 2009–2010 Insurance Component (MEPS IC).Study DesignWe use MEPS HC workers to construct synthetic workforces for MEPS IC establishments, applying the workers' marginal tax rates to the establishments' insurance premiums to compute the tax subsidy, in aggregate and by establishment characteristics. Simulation enables us to examine the sensitivity of ESI tax subsidy estimates to a range of scenarios for the within‐firm incidence of employer premium contributions when workers have heterogeneous health risks and make heterogeneous plan choices.Principal FindingsWe simulate the total ESI tax subsidy for all active, civilian U.S. work...
Health Insurance , Minimum Wages and the Labor Market : Insights from an Experiment
2015
We investigate, experimentally, labor market effects of two widely-discussed policy regulations: employer health insurance mandates and minimum wage increases. Using a competitive labor market framework, we verify that a minimum wage, if becomes binding, may eliminate voluntary provision of health insurance by firms to low wage workers. Mandating health insurance for all workers guarantees insurance coverage for those employed, but may lead to unemployment even if the minimum wage alone does not have this effect. Thus the interaction of two policies may result in consequences that may be overlooked if the policies are considered in isolation from each other. JEL classification codes: C92, I18, J20, J3.
Government Mandates and Employer-based Health Insurance: Who is Still Not Covered
1999
Abstract In this paper we explore the probability that employees have employer-based health insurance. Health insurance is a fixed cost which when added to cash compensation raises the cost of a low-wage worker more than that of a non-low-wage worker. A worker who has high expected medical expenditures or whose family has such expenditures may raise the cost of health insurance for all workers in the firm, particularly in a small firm.
Estimates of the Tax Subsidy for Employment-Related Health Insurance
National Tax Journal, 2000
This paper uses the MEDSIM health care microsimulation model developed by researchers at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to compute the magnitude and distribution of the tax subsidy for employment-related health insurance premiums. We also present estimates of the revenue gain that would be associated with a variety of caps on the amount of contributions that can be excluded from the tax base.
Job-based insurance declines for moderate- and low-income workers
Ucla Center For Health Policy Research, 2007
etween 2001 and 2005, employment-based insurance coverage fell dramatically among the 6.5 million workers with moderate-or low-incomes, more than a third of all nonelderly workers in the state. The decline occurred despite the strong economy and tight labor market in the last few years. B This policy brief, based on analyses of data from the 2001 and 2005 California Health Interview Surveys (CHIS), examines changes in employment-based insurance of working Californians, ages 19-64.
Labor Supply Responses to Employer-Provided Health Insurance
2002
Variation in income tax policies and health insurance costs are shown to be theoretically appropriate instruments to identify endogenous firm wage and benefit offers in a labor supply model. Empirical results show that firms are more likely to provide health insurance benefits in states with high marginal income tax rates and low hospitalization costs. The model implies that over the 1983-1995 period, large increases in health insurance costs and reductions in marginal income tax rates lowered the probability of receiving health insurance benefits from employers by 10 percentage points. This decrease in benefits lowered hours of labor supply by 4-7%.