Labor Market Effects of Hawaii'S Mandatory Employer-Provided Health Insurance

ILR Review ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman K. Thurston
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Employment Growth ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Wage Growth ◽  
National Average ◽  
Demand Shocks ◽  
Market Effects ◽  
Wage Effects ◽  
The Law

The author analyzes how mandatory employer provision of health insurance in Hawaii, which became law in 1974, affected workers' wages, employment, and insurance coverage. Between 1970 and 1990, the Hawaiian industries most affected by the mandate had slower wage growth than other Hawaiian industries, but more rapid wage growth than the same industries in the nation as a whole. The author speculates that the effects of unmeasured economy-wide positive demand shocks eclipsed the wage effects of the law. Hawaii's employment growth exceeded that of the country as a whole, but the percentage of Hawaiian workers employed less than 20 hours per week (and thus exempt from the law) was significantly higher than the national average. Insurance coverage for Hawaiian workers of all classes (including those exempt from the act)—and, indeed, for workers and nonworkers of all ages—significantly exceeded the national average in the early 1990s.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica M. Mulligan ◽  
Heide Castañeda
Keyword(s):  
Health Policy ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Affordable Care Act ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Health Insurance Coverage ◽  
Demographic Characteristics ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Immigration Status ◽  
Anthropological Approach ◽  
The Law

In this chapter, Jessica M. Mulligan and Heide Castañeda provide an overview of the Affordable Care Act focused on the coverage expansions that were at the heart of the law. The authors outline the ethnographic methods used in the book, arguing that an anthropological approach provides an experience-near perspective on implementation that too often is absent in mainstream treatments of health policy. The central theoretical concerns of the book are also introduced: stratified citizenship, risk, and responsibility. The term stratified citizenship describes how certain social identities and demographic characteristics—such as immigration status, income, gender, race, and state of residence—mediated how people were included or excluded from health insurance coverage through the ACA. Exposure to risks as well as inclusion in the new responsibilities created by the law were also unequally distributed.

scholarly journals The Labor Market Effects of Rising Health Insurance Premiums

2006 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 609-634 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Baicker ◽  
Amitabh Chandra
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Insurance Premiums ◽  
Market Effects ◽  
Health Insurance Premiums

Labor Market Consequences of State Mental Health Parity Mandates

2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Attila Cseh
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Health Insurance Coverage ◽  
State Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Parity ◽  
Insurance Premiums ◽  
Health Insurance Premiums ◽  
State Mental

This paper analyzes the effects of state mental health parity mandates on the labor and insurance markets. In particular, I investigate the effect of parity regulations along five margins: having employer provided health insurance coverage, employer contributions to health insurance premiums, the probability of full-time employment, working hours, and wages for a sample of private workers in firms with less than 100 employees using the Annual Demographic Surveys (March CPS) for the years 1999-2004 (and also in an extended sample of CPS 1992-2004). It is hypothesized that if parity mandates are costly they will have an impact on at least one of the above margins. I find no evidence for any of the most feared impact: a reduction in the probability of having employer-provided health insurance coverage or that state mental health parity mandates have decreased the generosity of employers' contributions to health insurance premiums. The results also lack any evidence of an impact on labor market composition or of costs having been passed onto workers in terms of lower wages.

Health Insurance and Labor Supply

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Colman ◽  
Dhaval Dave ◽  
Otto Lenhart
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Labor Supply ◽  
Economies Of Scale ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Market Effects ◽  
Job Lock ◽  
Individual Market ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The U.S

Health insurance depends on labor market activity more in the U.S. than in any other high-income country. A majority of the population are insured through an employer (known as employer-sponsored insurance or ESI), benefiting from the risk pooling and economies of scale available to group insurance plans. Some workers may therefore be reluctant to leave a job for fear of losing such low-cost insurance, a tendency known as “job lock,” or may switch jobs or work more hours merely to obtain it, known as “job push.” Others obtain insurance through government programs for which eligibility depends on income. They too may adapt their work effort to remain eligible for insurance. Those without access to ESI or who are too young or earn too much to qualify for public coverage (Medicare and Medicaid) can buy insurance only in the individual or nongroup market, where prices are high and variable. Most studies using data from before the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010 support the prediction that ESI reduced job mobility, labor-force participation, retirement, and self-employment prior to the ACA, but find little effect on the labor supply of public insurance. The ACA profoundly changed the health insurance market in the U.S., removing restrictions on obtaining insurance from new employers or on the individual market and expanding Medicaid eligibility to previously ineligible adults. Research on the ACA, however, has not found substantial labor supply effects. These results may reflect that the reforms to the individual market mainly affected those who were previously uninsured rather than workers with ESI, that the theoretical labor market effects of expansions in public coverage are ambiguous, and that the effect would be found only among the relatively small number on the fringes of eligibility.

Labor Market Consequences of State Health Insurance Regulation

ILR Review ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Kaestner ◽  
Kosali Ilayperuma Simon
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Private Insurance ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Labor Market Outcomes ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Insurance Benefits ◽  
Insurance Reform ◽  
Health Insurance Reform ◽  
Group Health Insurance

This study, based mainly on the 1989–98 March Current Population surveys, finds that state-mandated health insurance benefits and small-group health insurance reform had no statistically significant effects on labor market outcomes such as the quantity of work, wages, and whether an employee worked for a small or large firm. The number and type of state-mandated health insurance benefits were unrelated to weeks of work, wages, and the prevalence of private insurance coverage, but positively associated with weekly work hours. Extensive small-group health insurance reform was associated with a slight decline in the prevalence of private insurance coverage in small firms, and this reform affected both full- and part-time employees. Less extensive reforms were not generally related to the prevalence of private insurance coverage. Overall, the authors do not find strong evidence that insurance regulations affected labor market outcomes, although they appear to cause a small decrease in private coverage.

scholarly journals The Institutional Determinants of Health Insurance: Moving Away from Labor Market, Marriage, and Family Attachments under the ACA

2018 ◽  
Vol 83 (6) ◽  
pp. 1144-1170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen M. Gutierrez
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Strong Association ◽  
Health Insurance Coverage ◽  
Marriage And Family ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
Institutional Determinants

For more than a century, the American welfare state required working-age adults to obtain social welfare benefits through their linkages to employers, spouses, or children. Recent changes to U.S. healthcare policy prompted by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), however, provide adults with new pathways for accessing a key form of social welfare—health insurance— decoupled from employers, spouses, and children. Taking advantage of this fundamental shift in the country’s system of social welfare provision, I use data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) to explore patterns of health insurance coverage from before and after the ACA became active in 2014. The results show that the salience of labor market, marriage, and family attachments as pathways to coverage significantly declined in the first three years following passage of the ACA. By providing adults with a new route to coverage decoupled from their institutional attachments, the ACA helped narrow health insurance inequalities across gender, race and ethnicity, and education. Given the strong association between health insurance and health outcomes, the results from this study raise important questions about the centrality of institutional attachments for our knowledge of health inequalities.

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