Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
The ACA requires large employers to provide coverage to all full-time workers. However, providing insurance is costly. Will employers avoid this requirement by hiring more part-time workers? An Urban Institute report claims that this is not the case. We find no evidence that the ACA had already started increasing part-time work before 2014. We find…
One of the big political selling points of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was that by providing people with health insurance, they can get the primary care they need and avoid expensive ER visits. While the expansion of health insurance never claimed to be cost savings, did the ACA reduce ER visits? A paper by…
Obamacare mandates that individuals need to buy health insurance or else they will face a financial penalty. This threat, however, is not credible unless there are affordable health insurance options for most Americans. What are states doing to hold down health insurance rates in the ACA’s health insurance exchanges? A RWJF working paper provides some…
Which one is easier to use? The answer to this is clear: Amazon. Of course, health insurance is a much more difficult product for people to understand than most good at Amazon. However, many policymakers may have underestimated the amount of customer service new enrollees in Healthcare.gov need. The Washington Post reports: Just 13 percent of assistance…
Most people think that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has focused on decreasing uninsurance rates by creating health insurance exchanges, providing subsidies for health insurance premiums for these exchanges, and expanding Medicaid. The ACA also has affected a number of other segments of the health care industry. Less well known is that the ACA also affected…
Expanding health insurance causes moral hazard. Patients who bear a lower share of cost will inevitably use more health care serices. On the one hand, this increases the cost of the health care system; on the other hand, the patients who receive the additional care likely have better health outcomes. However, which services will patients who are newly…
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) recently ruled that family owned and other closely held companies can opt out of the Affordable Care Act’s provisions for no-cost prescription contraception in most health insurance if they have religious objections. Is this a blow to Obamacare? Yes and No. The practical implications may be small but…
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) increased the likelihood individuals have insurance by: (i) offering states money to expand Medicaid eligibility, and (ii) offering individuals subsidies to purchase insurance through newly created health insurance exchanges. Did it work? A Robert Wood Johnson report examines at the effect of the ACA on uninsurance rates in 14 large…
The Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act with one major exception; it declared that states did not have to expand their Medicaid eligibility rules. However, the ACA may have indirectly increased Medicaid enrollment even in States that did not change their eligilbity rules. Avalere Health reports that: 17 of the 26 states that did not…
Will the Affordable Care Act (aka ACA, aka Obamacare) cost American millions of jobs. A recent report by the CBO says yes. CBO estimates that the ACA will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 percent to 2.0 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers…