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SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH NETWORK
E M P L O Y E E B E N E F I T S , C O M P E N S A T I O N
& P E N S I O N L A W
Vol. 7, No. 18: July 13, 2006
Editors: PAMELA J. PERUN
Urban Institute
PAMELA@PLANETNOW.COM
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Topic of This Issue:
Healthcare
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T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
"Employer-Provided Health Insurance and the Incidence of
'Job-Lock': Is There a Consensus?"
INAS RASHAD
Georgia State University - Department of Economics,
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
"Love or Money? Health Insurance and Retirement Among Married
Couples"
JEANNETTE A. ROGOWSKI
UMDNJ-School of Public Health, National Bureau of
Economic Research (NBER)
KANIKA KAPUR
University College Dublin - School of Economics
"Dynamics of Work Disability and Pain"
ARTHUR H.O. VAN SOEST
RAND Corporation, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA),
Tilburg University
ARIE KAPTEYN
RAND Corporation, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
JAMES P. SMITH
RAND Corporation, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
"The Tax Treatment of Health Insurance and Employment-Based
Health Benefits"
PAUL FRONSTIN
Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI)
"Health Insurance Coverage and Reemployment Outcomes among Older
Displaced Workers"
Y. Y. LIN
Affiliation Unknown
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"Employer-Provided Health Insurance and the Incidence of
'Job-Lock': Is There a Consensus?"
Andrew Young School of Policy Studies Research Paper No.
06-53
Contact: INAS RASHAD
Georgia State University - Department of Economics,
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Email: irashsad@gsu.edu
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=536635
Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=903795
ABSTRACT: Several recent developments in health care in the United
States include declining health care coverage, particularly that
provided by employers, and a noticeable shift in the burden of
medical care costs to employees. If these developments cause
employees to feel locked into their jobs, optimal job matches in
the labor force will not take place. Partly in response, the
federal government has passed laws protecting health coverage for
workers who switch jobs, with the passage of the Consolidated
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986 and later the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in 1996. In this
paper we summarize the current literature on the topic and
present some findings using the National Health Interview Survey,
focusing on the 1997-2003 period. Our findings are consistent
with recent assertions that there is some evidence of job-lock.
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"Love or Money? Health Insurance and Retirement Among Married
Couples"
NBER Working Paper No. W12273
Contact: JEANNETTE A. ROGOWSKI
UMDNJ-School of Public Health, National Bureau of
Economic Research (NBER)
Email: rogowsje@umdnj.edu
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=400636
Co-Author: KANIKA KAPUR
University College Dublin - School of Economics
Email: kanika.kapur@ucd.ie
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=349131
Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=906751
ABSTRACT: This paper examines the role of employer provided health
insurance in the retirement decisions of dual working couples.
The near elderly have high-expected medical expenditures;
therefore, availability of health insurance is an important
factor in their retirement decisions. We determine if access to
retiree health insurance for early retirement enables couples to
time their retirement together - a behavior called "joint
retirement." We find that wives' retiree health insurance more
than doubles the propensity to retire jointly, suggesting that
health insurance is an important consideration in coordinating
retirement decisions among couples. Even though retiree health
insurance has a substantial effect on joint retirement, its
effect on overall employment patterns is modest, accounting for a
2 percentage point fall in employment.
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"Dynamics of Work Disability and Pain"
IZA Discussion Paper No. 2057
CentER Discussion Paper No. 2006-22
Contact: ARTHUR H.O. VAN SOEST
RAND Corporation, Institute for the Study of Labor
(IZA), Tilburg University
Email: VanSoest@rand.org
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=52940
Co-Author: ARIE KAPTEYN
RAND Corporation, Institute for the Study of Labor
(IZA)
Email: kapteyn@rand.org
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=236448
Co-Author: JAMES P. SMITH
RAND Corporation, Institute for the Study of Labor
(IZA)
Email: james_smith@rand.org
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=138237
Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=894874
ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the role of pain in affecting
self-reported work disability and employment of elderly workers
in the US. We investigate pain and its relationship to work
disability and work in a dynamic panel data model, using six
biennial waves from the Health and Retirement Study. We find the
dynamics of the presence of pain is central to understanding the
dynamics of self-reported work disability. By affecting work
disability pain also has important implications for the dynamic
patterns of employment.
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"The Tax Treatment of Health Insurance and Employment-Based
Health Benefits"
EBRI Issue Brief, No. 294, June 2006
Contact: PAUL FRONSTIN
Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI)
Email: FRONSTIN@EBRI.ORG
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=255140
Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=910252
ABSTRACT: Various proposals have been made to change the tax
treatment of health coverage, which currently is tax free to both
employers and workers. Proponents of these changes argue, among
other things, that current tax rules are unfair and contribute to
unnecessary spending for health care. This paper examines changes
that policymakers are discussing, explores the history of tax
laws concerning the tax treatment of health benefits and the cost
to the federal government in forgone taxes because of these laws,
and examines some of the advantages and disadvantages that could
result from the proposed changes. Any honest debate of overhauling
the federal tax treatment of health care in the United States
needs to address not just what a new system might do, but what
the trade-offs and unintended consequences might be, and who
would be likely to be most affected by the change.
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"Health Insurance Coverage and Reemployment Outcomes among Older
Displaced Workers"
Contemporary Economic Policy, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 529-544,
2005
Contact: Y. Y. LIN
Affiliation Unknown
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=633289
Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=904762
ABSTRACT: This article investigates the relationship between
health insurance coverage and employment behavior among older
workers with an involuntary job loss. It finds that various
sources of health insurance are available to mitigate the
circumstances where employer-sponsored health insurance is
terminated when older workers lose jobs involuntarily. However,
older displaced workers remain less likely to be insured than
comparable nondisplaced workers by 7.6 percentage points one year
after the job loss. The analysis also reveals that having secure
health coverage before job displacement is associated with lower
probabilities of reemployment and longer postdisplacement
nonemployment spells.