Tag Archives: health insurance mandate

New Health Care Law

Who Pays Obamacare’s “Slacker Mandate”? Workers with No Kids!

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LGBT-ACA-ADThe “slacker mandate” is the provision in Obamacare requiring employer-based health plans to offer benefits to adult dependents of their workers, up to age 26. I previously discussed research showing the mandate reduced work among adults, aged 19 to 26, and increased the time they spend socializing, sleeping, and exercising.

What about the financial costs of the mandate? Speak to an insurance agent or benefits consultant and they will tell you the cost are fully borne by working parents. In the old days, employer-based health insurance was offered to workers in three sizes: Single, couple, or family. It did not matter how many kids you had. Today, each dependent adds to the premium. So, the “slacker mandate” is paid for by the working parents. That is not really a problem for society. However, there is more to the story.

A remarkable study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research concludes this happened. The slacker mandate reduced wages among workers without children by $211 a month, but did not reduce wages among workers with children (either minor or adult) by a statistically significant amount. Continue reading Who Pays Obamacare’s “Slacker Mandate”? Workers with No Kids! →

New Health Care Law

Work & Employment Down, Sleep & Socializing Up: Obamacare’s “Slacker Mandate”

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sleeping-womanWhat with Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges unraveling pretty quickly, Americans might be excused for having forgotten one of Obamacare’s first intrusions: The “slacker mandate.” This was the provision that requires employer-based health plans to cover “children” on their parents’ plans until they are 26.

It took effect in 2010. The results are in, according to a new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research:

If, as suggested by prior work, the provision reduced the amount of time young adults work, the question arises, what have these adults done with the extra time?

The extra time has gone into socializing, and to a lesser extent, into education and job search. Availability of insurance and change in work time appear to have increased young adults’ subjective well-being, enabling them to spend time on activities they view as more meaningful than those they did before insurance became available.

(Gregory Dolman & Dhaval Dave, “It’s About Time: Effects of the Affordable Care Act Coverage Mandate on Time Use,” NBER Working Paper No. 21725, November 2015.)

Continue reading Work & Employment Down, Sleep & Socializing Up: Obamacare’s “Slacker Mandate” →

Health Alerts

Why Is There No Car Care Crisis?

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employer coverage 300(A version of this Health Alert was published by RealClearPolicy.)

Our health care is in “crisis.” We seem to have achieved the remarkable result of spending too much money while not ensuring access for enough people. Every politician says so, and most citizens agree. Indeed, no presidential candidate can be viewed as credible without proposing a health reform “plan.”

Hillary Clinton has sworn to protect and uphold the Affordable Care Act against all right-wing conspirators; Bernie Sanders has long advocated a government-monopoly, single-payer system; and Republican contenders will continue to roll out plans to “repeal and replace Obamacare” that will immediately come under attack by conservatives and libertarians as “Obamacare-lite.”

Let’s put the crisis in perspective. According to actuaries at the federal government, spending on health care per person in 2014 was $9,176. Yet according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), the average cost of operating and maintaining an average sedan in 2014 was $8,876 — almost exactly the same as health spending. Of course, not everyone owns a car, but most of us do. According to IHS Automotive, an industry research firm, 253 million cars traveled America’s roads last year. According to the Census Bureau, there were 239 million of us aged 18 through 84; that’s slightly more than one car per person in prime driving years. Continue reading Why Is There No Car Care Crisis? →

New Health Care Law

Did 15 Million – Not 6.6 Million – Pay Obamacare’s Mandate Penalty?

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The media have reported that 6.6 million “taxpayers” paid the Obamacare penalty (tax) for not obeying the individual mandate to buy federally qualified health insurance in 2014. However, the actual figure must be much larger.

However, the report by the Taxpayer Advocate discusses “returns,” not individual taxpayers. It reports that 2.6 million 2014 returns claimed Obamacare’s premium tax credits, totaling $7.7 billion paid out, and an average pay out of $3,000).

We know from other sources that about 6.14 million individuals claimed tax credits for Obamacare coverage last year (87 percent of 7.06 million individuals). (And that is only if we count people who signed up during open enrollment, which ended in March 2014. Because special enrollment continued throughout the year, most of those who signed up later would also have claimed tax credits.) Continue reading Did 15 Million – Not 6.6 Million – Pay Obamacare’s Mandate Penalty? →

Health Insurance

Health Insurers Consolidate on Business; Fragment on Policy

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A few days ago, this blog discussed the wave of consolidation among health insurers. The two main deals discussed in the business press are Anthem’s bid for CIGNA and the likely takeover of Humana by a bigger insurer which wants to beef up its Medicare Advantage and/or Medicaid managed care business.

While this consolidation plays out, the policy world was surprised to see the largest insurer, UnitedHealth Group (UNH), pull out of AHIP, the health plans’ trade association. Both parties soft-pedalled the exit of the association’s largest member.

I do not plan to speculate recklessly on the reasons for the exit. UNH noted that its “diversified portfolio” is not best served by membership in AHIP. UNH has two very distinct businesses, UnitedHealth Group and Optum. The former is a health insurer and the latter a vendor of big-data analytics. UNH consistently stresses that they are different businesses, to the degree that it sometimes verges on denying it is a health insurer at all. Continue reading Health Insurers Consolidate on Business; Fragment on Policy →

Health Care Costs

Taxpayers Will Pay Dearly for New Health Care Bill Costs

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Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) just released its analysis of the new House Democrats' health care plan. The report found:

  • The House bill would compel all Americans to enroll in health coverage or make them pay a penalty equal to 2.5% of their income.
  • Employers that failed to provide a health care plan would suffer a penalty equal to 8% of payroll.
  • The bill would also tax insurance premiums at an (as yet) undetermined rate.
  • High income families would have to pay a "surtax" of 1% to 5% depending on annual income. When combined with state and local taxes, their tax bracket will exceed 50%.

For more information on the House Democratic plan, click here.

New Health Care Law

Best News of the Day

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Cheer up. According to the New York Times (which ought to know), the country’s most powerful unions are not able to stickhandle their agenda through Congress and the White House due to “internal disputes.” If true, this is good news for health reform. Note that whenever a corporate interest seeks to appease Obama on health care, it must do so through the intermediation of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The latest example is Wal-Mart, which caved into a “mandate” that employers cover their employees’ health care, largely because this would put competitors like Target at a competitive disadvantage. Continue reading Best News of the Day →

New Health Care Law

Arizona Residents Demand the Right to Choose

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The Arizona senate approved a ballot initiative that would allow voters to send a strong message to Washington about the type of health plan they have. The Health Care Freedom Act would guarantee Arizona residents the right to decide whether to participate in any health plan. This would allow residents the right to decline to participate in all insurance plans.