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The incidence of the Affordable Care Act's dependent coverage mandate

Author(s):
Glied, Sherry, author
Ko, Hansoo, author
National Bureau of Economic Research, issuing body
Title(s):
The incidence of the Affordable Care Act's dependent coverage mandateĀ / Sherry A. Glied, Hansoo Ko.
Series:
NBER working paper series ; working paper 31220
Country of Publication:
United States
Publisher:
Cambridge, MA : National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2023.
Description:
36 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 22 cm.
Language:
English
Summary:
Economic theory and empirical studies conclude that the cost of voluntary employer-sponsored health insurance falls on employees. However, the distribution of incidence and the mechanism through which incidence occurs have not been well-established. We provide new evidence about incidence by examining the dependent coverage mandate in the ACA, which requires group insurance to allow adult children to age 26 to remain on their parents' policies. We establish that the incidence of the mandate fell on covered employees as a group. We then consider three situations in which the benefits of this new coverage to an employee differ from the costs to an employer. First, we compare incidence where the young adult dependent is the youngest child in the family to the situation where the child is not the youngest (so the family could add a dependent to existing family coverage). We find that incidence falls mainly on households where the newly-eligible child is the youngest in the household. Second, higher-income households face a lower tax price of coverage than do lower-income households. We find that the incidence of the mandate falls mainly on the highest income households. Finally, we find that the mandate leads to increased commuting time for parents of newly-eligible dependents.
MeSH:
Family
Health Benefit Plans, Employee/economics*
Insurance Coverage/economics
United States
Other Subject(s):
United States. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Publication Type(s):
Statistics
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references.
Also published electronically.
Other ID:
(OCoLC)1381036244
NLM ID:
9918646074306676 [Book]

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