The Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Health Insurance Coverage and Labor Market Outcomes

60 Pages Posted: 25 Jul 2017 Last revised: 3 Jul 2023

See all articles by Mark Duggan

Mark Duggan

Stanford University - Department of Economics

Gopi Shah Goda

Stanford University

Emilie Jackson

Stanford University - Department of Economics

Date Written: July 2017

Abstract

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) includes several provisions designed to expand insurance coverage that also alter the tie between employment and health insurance. In this paper, we exploit variation across geographic areas in the potential impact of the ACA to estimate its effect on health insurance coverage and labor market outcomes in the first two years after the implementation of its main features. Our measures of potential ACA impact come from pre-existing population shares of uninsured individuals within income groups that were targeted by Medicaid expansions and federal subsidies for private health insurance, interacted with each state’s Medicaid expansion status. Our findings indicate that the majority of the increase in health insurance coverage since 2013 is due to the ACA and that areas in which the potential Medicaid and exchange enrollments were higher saw substantially larger increases in coverage. While labor market outcomes in the aggregate were not significantly affected, our results indicate that labor force participation reductions in areas with higher potential exchange enrollment were offset by increases in labor force participation in areas with higher potential Medicaid enrollment

Suggested Citation

Duggan, Mark and Goda, Gopi Shah and Jackson, Emilie, The Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Health Insurance Coverage and Labor Market Outcomes (July 2017). NBER Working Paper No. w23607, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3007479

Mark Duggan (Contact Author)

Stanford University - Department of Economics ( email )

Landau Economics Building
579 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-6072
United States

Gopi Shah Goda

Stanford University ( email )

SIEPR
366 Galvez St.
Stanford, CA 94305
United States
6507360480 (Phone)

Emilie Jackson

Stanford University - Department of Economics ( email )

Landau Economics Building
579 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-6072
United States

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