Full Citation
Title: How Have Workers Fared Under the ACA?
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2018
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Abstract: A central aim of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was to increase health insurance coverage. In a previous brief, we documented that, through 2015, coverage gains for workers under the ACA were largest in occupations with lower baseline coverage rates, employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) coverage rates, hourly wages, and weekly earnings.1 These findings indicated that coverage gains were well-targeted to workers and their dependents who most needed the assistance. In this brief, we assess whether coverage gains from 2010 to 2016 were associated with changes in labor market outcomes across occupations. We show how employment, hours worked per week, and weekly earnings changed, by occupation group, and how these changes differed for occupations experiencing larger and smaller coverage gains under the ACA. We also examine whether occupations experiencing increased coverage through nonemployment sources (i.e., through Medicaid or individual plans purchased on the ACA’s Marketplace exchanges) also experienced offsetting declines in ESI coverage. Widely cited predictions that the coverage provisions of the ACA would lead to reduced employment and work hours did not materialize, nor did predictions that employer-based coverage rates would fall as employers dropped coverage. Millions of workers gained insurance coverage under the ACA without the adverse effects on labor markets that some had forecasted.
Url: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/99310/how_have_workers_fared_under_the_aca.pdf
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Authors: Gangopadhyaya, Anuj; Garrett, Bowen; Dorn, Stan
Publisher: Urban Institute
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Other, Population Health and Health Systems
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