The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590), the health care reform bill that was passed by the Senate and is now being considered by the House, promises to overhaul the current health insurance system by enforcing mandates on individuals and businesses, expanding Medicaid, and introducing new … Read more

Abstract: Both of the current House and Senate health care bills disproportionately burden younger, healthier Americans with higher insurance premiums. To ensure that these young people buy health insurance anyway, Congress has decided to nudge them into purchasing insurance by enforcing a penalty… Read more

Public support for health care reform is based on a desire to help the sick or, at the very least, to protect the non-wealthy from the financial impact of illness, chronic disease, and accidents. Unfortunately, the reform proposals under active consideration in Congress do precisely the opposite. In particular, the Baucus health reform… Read more

Abstract: The individual mandate in the Baucus health care plan would impose punitively high, regressive taxes on low-income and moderate-income working families. Its penalties and additional taxes on business would discourage companies from hiring or continuing to employ low-income and moderate-income workers. The plan would substantially raise health insurance premiums. Yet the plan… Read more

Health economists have long considered changing the tax treatment of health insurance a key component of any serious health care reform. A relic of the World War II era, the federal tax code currently excludes, without limit, the value of employer-sponsored health insurance from an individual's taxable income for the purposes of both income… Read more

How the health insurance system influences the likelihood of changing jobs and becoming self-employed Abstract This paper investigates the extent to which employer-sponsored health insurance influenced job mobility between 1995 and 2007. This time period is important given the recent increase in the cost of private health insurance and the enactment of… Read more

A recently released report by Christina Romer, chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, the Vice President's chief economist, is being widely cited by Administration officials (including the President) and Members of Congress as proof that the stimulus package currently being… Read more

The United States Senate will soon consider legislation to reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Its decisions on that legislation will have a major impact on the private health insurance coverage of millions of American children. The House of Representatives… Read more

Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler rely heavily on an economic impact study by the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in making their case for a financial bailout. This report claims that the simultaneous failure of these three companies would result in a loss of 3.3 million jobs nationally in the same year as the… Read more

Presidential candidate Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has put forth an ambitious health care plan.[1]The plan proposes: Replacing the current income tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance with refundable tax credits; Enabling individuals and families to purchase health insurance across state lines; and Providing federal assistance to states to cover hard-to-insure populations… Read more