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A Tax On Work For The Elderly: Medicare As A Secondary Payer

Author

Listed:
  • Gopi Shah Goda

    (Stanford University)

  • John Shoven

    (Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford University)

  • Sita Slavov

    (Department of Economics, Occidental College)

Abstract

Medicare as a Secondary Payer (MSP) legislation requires employer-sponsored health insurance to be a primary payer for Medicare-eligible workers at firms with 20 or more employees. While the legislation was developed to better target Medicare services to individuals without access to employer-sponsored insurance, MSP creates a significant implicit tax on working beyond age 65. This implicit tax is approximately 15-20 percent at age 65 and increases to 45-70 percent by age 80. Eliminating this implicit tax by making Medicare a primary payer for all Medicare-eligible individuals could significantly increase lifetime labor supply due to the high labor supply elasticities of older workers. The extra tax receipts from such a policy would likely offset a large percentage of the estimated costs of making Medicare the primary payer. Creation Date: 2009-08 Revision Date:

Suggested Citation

  • Gopi Shah Goda & John Shoven & Sita Slavov, "undated". "A Tax On Work For The Elderly: Medicare As A Secondary Payer," Discussion Papers 08-60, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:sip:dpaper:08-060
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    File URL: http://www-siepr.stanford.edu/repec/sip/08-060.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. David Neumark, 2008. "The Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Challenge of Population Aging," NBER Working Papers 14317, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Julian Diaz Saavedra, 2013. "Age-dependent Taxation, Retirement Behavior, and Work Hours Over the Life Cycle," ThE Papers 13/09, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    3. Yuanyuan Deng & Hugo Benítez-Silva, 2021. "An Empirical Model of Medicare Costs: The Role of Health Insurance, Employment, and Delays in Medicare Enrollment," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-32, June.
    4. Eric French & John Jones, 2012. "Public pensions and labor supply over the life cycle," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(2), pages 268-287, April.
    5. Gopi Shah Goda & John B. Shoven & Sita Nataraj Slavov, 2011. "Implicit Taxes on Work from Social Security and Medicare," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 69-88.
    6. David G. McCarthy & Po‐Lin Wang, 2022. "Wait your turn: Pension incentives, workplace rules, and labor supply among Philadelphia municipal workers," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 89(4), pages 985-1029, December.
    7. David Wise, 2010. "Facilitating longer working lives: International evidence on why and how," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 47(1), pages 131-149, March.
    8. Julián Díaz-Saavedra, 2017. "Tax and transfer programs, retirement behavior, and work hours over the life cycle," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 64-85, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Medicare; secondary payer; health insurance; labor;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

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