Health Insurance and Less Skilled Workers
51 Pages Posted: 10 Feb 2000 Last revised: 5 Jun 2022
Date Written: August 1999
Abstract
We begin this research with the belief that low and declining levels of private-employer sponsored health insurance were a continuing problem, especially among less skilled workers. Our analysis, however, paints a more complex picture. Using data from the March CPS, the SIP, and CPS benefits surveys, we find that while many less skilled workers remain uncovered, the decline in private employer-sponsored health insurance coverage has slowed recently and may even have reversed. Neither crowdout nor a deterioration in the quality of jobs available to the less skilled seems likely to fully explain these time-series trends in health insurance coverage. A simple explanation that has been largely overlooked is that rising health care costs have driven much of the reduction in private insurance coverage, but it is more difficult to test this hypothesis given the available data.
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Health Insurance, Labor Supply, and Job Mobility: A Critical Review of the Literature
-
Recent Trends in Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Coverage: are Bad Jobs Getting Worse?
By Henry S. Farber and Helen Levy
-
Tax Incentives and the Decision to Purchase Health Insurance: Evidence from the Self-Employed
By Jonathan Gruber and James M. Poterba
-
Employment-Based Health Insurance and Job Mobility: Is There Evidence of Job-Lock?
-
Subsidies to Employee Health Insurance Premiums and the Health Insurance Market
-
How Elastic is the Firm's Demand for Health Insurance?
By Jonathan Gruber and Michael Lettau
-
Limited Insurance Portability and Job Mobility: The Effects of Public Policy on Job-Lock
-
Health Insurance and Early Retirement: Evidence from the Availability of Continuation Coverage
-
Why Did Employee Health Insurance Contributions Rise?
By Jonathan Gruber and Robin Mcknight