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To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2005.10.001 Byline: Anne Beeson Royalty (a), Jean M. Abraham (b) Keywords: Employer-based health insurance; Full-time employment; Labor force participation; Assortative mating Abstract: Most Americans obtain access to health insurance through an employer. In this paper, we ask how the link between health insurance and employment affects labor market choices such as whether to work full-time. To understand the effect of the incentives embedded in the employer-based insurance system, we study the joint decision-making of husbands and wives that determines the household's access to health insurance. We estimate the effect on a wife's (husband's) labor market outcomes of husband's (wife's) health insurance, allowing the health insurance of both spouses to be endogenous. Obtaining unbiased estimates of such effects is complicated by the likelihood that positive assortative mating creates correlations between a couple's characteristics and the possibility that there are important unobservable household income effects. Our innovation is to measure these biases by examining a second fringe benefit, paid sick leave, in addition to health insurance. We find that, as predicted, spouse's insurance has statistically significant negative effects on being offered own employer insurance as well as on the probability of working full-time with health insurance. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Economics, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, United States (b) Division of Health Services Research and Policy, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, United States Article History: Received 17 March 2005; Revised 7 October 2005; Accepted 7 October 2005

A study on the effect of premium on the decision to enroll in employer health insurance and other benefit plans is presented. The previous estimate of the effects of the insurance was biased due to the presence of unobservable demand or plan quality. In this study the problem is solved by the introduction of three different price regimes. It is observed that workers are insensitive to price in health insurance take up, where as they are sensitive to decisions on taking up dental insurance, vision plans, wellness benefits, etc. therefore the influence of premium subsidies is negligible in increasing the insurance rates of workers who are already having the employer insurance.

An examination of physician responses to the expansion of Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women during the 1980s is presented using data on a variety of physician practices. Expanded Medicaid eligibility is found to increase access to physician services, but only in 'public' institutions such as public clinics and hospital clinics; findings refute earlier claims that private, office-based physicians see more Medicaid patients as a result of the policy changes.

Using a unique panel dataset of health plan choices and personal characteristics of employees at a single firm, this paper provides estimates of price elasticities for health insurance plans in a managed competition setting. Estimated price elasticities are larger in absolute value than most previous estimates and the magnitude of the price elasticity suggests that there is a place for price competition in this market. We also find evidence of transition costs in switching health plans for older and less healthy employees. Such differential responses to price may contribute to adverse selection in this market. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.), I. Introduction Using a unique panel dataset of the health plan choices and personal characteristics of employees at a single firm, this paper provides estimates of price elasticities for health [...]

Using multinomial probit estimates of the probability of job-to-job and job-to-nonemployment turnover, I find that differences between women's and men's turnover are due to the behavior of less educated women. Both the job-to-job and job-to-nonemployment turnover of less educated women are significantly different from that of more educated women as well as both groups of men. I also find that distinguishing between types of turnover--job-to-job versus job-to-nonemployment--is quite important, particularly in understanding the turnover patterns of women.

The impact of tax preferences for health insurance provided by employers on employee eligibility for such insurance is examined in detail. There is a positive tax effect on eligibility.

We develop an empirical method to assess the degree of financial exposure associated with medical care spending among non-elderly US families with employer-sponsored insurance. A key feature of this method is its simplicity - it only requires data on out-of-pocket (OOP) health care spending and total health care spending and does not require detailed knowledge of health insurance benefit design. We apply our method to assess whether families with a chronically ill member face more financial exposure given their level of total spending relative to families with no chronically ill members. We find that the insured chronically ill face more financial exposure than the insured non-chronically ill. Additional analyses suggest that the reason for this additional financial exposure is not that families with a chronically ill member are in different, less generous plans, on average. Rather, families with a chronically ill member have higher spending on certain types of medical services (e.g., pharmaceuticals) that face higher levels of coinsurance. Given recent work on value-based insurance design and coinsurance as an obstacle to medication adherence, our findings suggest that the current design of health plans could jeopardize both the health and the financial well-being of the chronically ill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In recent years the cost of health insurance has been increasing much faster than wages. In the face of these rising costs, many employers will have to make difficult decisions about whether to cut back health benefits or to compensate workers with lower wages or lower wage growth. In this paper, we ask the question, “Which do workers value more—one additional dollar''s worth of health benefits or one more dollar in their pockets? ” Using a new approach to obtaining estimates of insured workers’ marginal valuation of health benefits this paper estimates how much, on average, employees value the marginal dollar paid by employers for their workers’ health insurance. We find that insured workers value the marginal health premium dollar at significantly less than the marginal wage dollar. However, workers value insurance generosity very highly. The marginal dollar spent on health insurance that adds an additional dollar''s worth of observable dimensions of plan generosity, such as lower deductibles or coverage of additional services, is valued at significantly more than one dollar. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]