This paper measures the effects of subsidies in the Affordable Care Act on adverse financial outcomes using administrative tax data and credit data on financial outcomes. Using a difference-in-differences design with propensity score reweighting, I find that at $100 per capita, ACA premium tax credits and cost-sharing reduction subsidies reduced…

This paper examines the incidence of the cost burden associated with expanding public health insurance to low-income adults in the context of the Affordable Care Act. Using data from the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey (MEPS), I exploit exogenous variation in Medicaid eligibility rules across states, income groups and time. I find that public…

We study how health insurance eligibility affects financial distress for young adults using the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) dependent coverage mandate--the part of the ACA that requires private health insurance plans to cover individuals up to their 26th birthday. We examine the effects of both gaining and losing eligibility by exploiting the…

As we approach the tenth anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, it is important to reflect on what has been learned about the impacts of this major reform. In this paper, we review the literature on the impacts of the ACA on patients, providers, and the economy. We find strong evidence that the ACA's provisions have increased…

This paper examines the labor market effects of state health insurance mandates that increase the cost of employing a demographically identifiable group. State mandates requiring that health insurance plans cover infertility treatment raise the relative cost of insuring older women of child-bearing age. Empirically, wages in this group are…

Caspar, Hartwig, and Moench do little to convince the authors of this paper that they have identified policy prescriptions that might usefully be applied to the United States. Caspar, Hartwig, and Moench suggest that in countries with high shares of temporary contract workers, employment reductions were sharper (because they could be). But does an…

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is the most significant health policy legislation since Medicare in 1965. The need to address rising health care costs and the lack of health insurance coverage is widely accepted. Health care spending is approaching 17 percent of gross domestic product and yet 45 million Americans remain…

SSDI beneficiaries lose their entire cash benefit if they perform work that is substantial gainful activity (SGA) after using Social Security work incentive programs. The complete loss of benefits might be a work disincentive for beneficiaries. We report results from a pilot project that replaces the complete loss of benefits with a gradual…

Health disparities related to sexual orientation are well documented and may be due to unequal access to a partner's employer-sponsored insurance (ESI). We provide the literature's first evaluation of legislation enacted by California in 2005 that required private employers within the state to treat employees in committed same-sex relationships in…

This paper employs panel estimators with data on the 50 American states for the years 1963 to 2006 to test the relationship between Unemployment Insurance (UI) trust fund solvency and UI benefit generosity. We find that both average and maximum weekly UI benefit amounts, as ratios to the average weekly wage, are higher in states and in years with…

Since the onset of the Great Recession, the U.S. labor market has been reeling. Public concern has largely focused on the unemployment rate, which rose to double digits and has since been stalled at just over 9 percent. This rate is unacceptably high, and macroeconomic policy efforts have been unsuccessful in bringing it down. The overall…

We examine the effect of gaining prescription drug insurance, as a result of Medicare Part D, on use of prescription drugs and other medical services for a nationally representative sample of Medicare beneficiaries. Given the heightened importance of prescription drugs for those with chronic illness, we provide separate estimates for elderly in…

From 1991 to 2009, the fraction of Medicaid recipients enrolled in HMOs and other forms of Medicaid managed care (MMC) increased from 11 percent to 71 percent. This increase was largely driven by state and local mandates that required most Medicaid recipients to enroll in an MMC plan. Theoretically, it is ambiguous whether the shift from…

Burkhauser and Daly claim that Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is growing at an unsustainable rate and has depressed employment rates and incomes of people with disabilities following enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. In the authors' view, SSDI is sustainable and affordable, despite increasing prevalence of…

The number of automobile recalls in the U.S. has increased sharply in the last two decades, and the numbers of units involved are often counted in the millions. In 2010 alone, over 20 million vehicles were recalled in the United States, and the massive recalls of full model lines by Toyota have brought this issue to the front pages around the…