Health Insurance and Less Skilled Workers / Janet Currie, Aaron Yelowitz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Currie, Janet.

Contributor:

Yelowitz, Aaron.

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w7291.

NBER working paper series no. w7291

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1999.

Summary:

We begin this research with the belief that low and declining levels of private-employer sponsored health insurance were a continuing problem, especially among less skilled workers. Our analysis, however, paints a more complex picture. Using data from the March CPS, the SIP, and CPS benefits surveys, we find that while many less skilled workers remain uncovered, the decline in private employer-sponsored health insurance coverage has slowed recently and may even have reversed. Neither crowdout nor a deterioration in the quality of jobs available to the less skilled seems likely to fully explain these time-series trends in health insurance coverage. A simple explanation that has been largely overlooked is that rising health care costs have driven much of the reduction in private insurance coverage, but it is more difficult to test this hypothesis given the available data.

Notes:

August 1999.

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