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Health-care reform or labor market reform? a quantitative analysis of the Affordable Care Act

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  • Makoto Nakajima
  • Didem Tuzemen

Abstract

An equilibrium model with ?rm and worker heterogeneity is constructed to analyze labor market and welfare implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Our model implies a signi?cant reduction in the uninsured rate from 22.6 percent to 5.6 percent. {{p}} The model predicts a moderate positive welfare gain from the ACA, due to redistribution of income through Health Insurance Subsidies at the Exchange as well as Medicaid expansion. About 2.1 million more part-time jobs are created under the ACA, in expense of 1.6 million full-time jobs, mainly because the link between full-time employment and health insurance is weakened. The model predicts a small negative effect on total hours worked (0.36%), partly because of the general equilibrium effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Makoto Nakajima & Didem Tuzemen, 2015. "Health-care reform or labor market reform? a quantitative analysis of the Affordable Care Act," Research Working Paper RWP 15-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedkrw:rwp15-10
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Healthcare costs in the US
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2016-03-29 20:14:40

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    Cited by:

    1. Job Boerma & Ellen McGrattan, 2018. "Health Capital Taxation," 2018 Meeting Papers 204, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. Naoki Aizawa & Chao Fu, 2020. "Interaction of the Labor Market and the Health Insurance System: Employer-Sponsored, Individual, and Public Insurance," NBER Working Papers 26713, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Feng, Zhigang & Zhao, Kai, 2018. "Employment-based health insurance and aggregate labor supply," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 156-174.
    4. Dillender, Marcus O. & Heinrich, Carolyn J. & Houseman, Susan N., 2016. "Health insurance reform and part-time work: Evidence from Massachusetts," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 151-158.
    5. Chao Fu & Naoki Aizawa, 2017. "Local Market Equilibrium and the Design of Public Health Insurance System," 2017 Meeting Papers 1448, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Vegard M. Nygaard & Gajendran Raveendranathan, 2021. "The impact of U.S. employer-sponsored insurance in the 20th century," Department of Economics Working Papers 2021-11, McMaster University.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health insurance; Affordable Care Act; Labor market;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E65 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Studies of Particular Policy Episodes
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

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