In this paper, we estimate the effect of the tax preference for insurance on health spending based on the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys from 1996-2005. We use the fact that Social Security taxes are only levied on earnings below a statutory threshold to identify the tax preference's impact. Because employer-sponsored health insurance premiums are excluded from Social Security payroll taxes, workers who earn just below the Social Security tax threshold receive a larger tax preference for health insurance than workers who earn just above it. We find a significant effect of the tax preference, consistent with previous research.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
13767.
Length: Date of creation: Jan 2008 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13767
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