Tax Incentives and the Decision to Purchase Health Insurance: Evidence from the Self-Employed / Jonathan Gruber, James M. Poterba.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gruber, Jonathan.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Poterba, James M.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w4435.

NBER working paper series no. w4435

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Health insurance--United States.

Health insurance.

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Tax Incentives and the Decision to Purchase Health Insurance

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1993.

Cambridge, Massachussetts : National Bureau of Economic Research, [1993]

Summary:

The Tax Reform Act of 1986 introduced a new tax subsidy for health insurance purchases by self-employed persons. This paper analyzes the changing patterns of insurance demand before and after this reform to generate new estimates of how the after tax price of insurance affects the discrete choice of whether to buy insurance. We employ both traditional regression models for insurance demand, in which after-tax price of insurance is an explanatory variable. as well as nonparametric tests that compare changes in insurance purchases by self-employed individuals with the coincident changes for other groups. Our analysis suggests that I one percent increase in the cost of insurance coverage reduces the probability that a self-employed household will be insured by as much as 1.8 percentage points.

Notes:

Print version record

August 1993.