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SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH NETWORK
EMPLOYEE BENEFITS, COMPENSATION & PENSION LAW ABSTRACTS
Sponsored by Pension Governance, LLC
Vol. 8, No. 10: March 15, 2007
Editor: PAMELA J. PERUN
Urban Institute
PAMELA@PLANETNOW.COM
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Topic of This Issue:
Health Care
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T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
"Making Universal Health Care Work"
JONATHAN BARRY FORMAN
University of Oklahoma College of Law
"The Implications of Paying for Current Medicare"
THOMAS R. SAVING
Texas A&M University - Private Enterprise Research
Center
"Crowd-Out Ten Years Later: Have Recent Public Insurance
Expansions Crowded Out Private Health Insurance?"
JONATHAN GRUBER
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department
of Economics, National Bureau of Economic Research
(NBER)
KOSALI ILAYPERUMA SIMON
Cornell University - Department of Policy Analysis &
Management (PAM), National Bureau of Economic Research
(NBER)
"The Economic Impact of Disability in the U.S., 1997: Total and
Incremental Estimates"
MIRIAM CISTERNAS
MGC Data Services
EDWARD H. YELIN
University of California, San Francisco - School of
Medicine
LAURA TRUPIN
University of California, San Francisco - Institute for
Health Policy Studies
"Workers' Compensation, Social Security Disability Insurance, and
the Offset: A Fact Sheet"
VIRGINIA P. RENO
National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI)
CECILI THOMPSON WILLIAMS
Affiliation Unknown
ISHITA SENGUPTA
National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI)
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"Making Universal Health Care Work"
St. Thomas Law Review, Vol. 19, pp. 101-113, 2007
Contact: JONATHAN BARRY FORMAN
University of Oklahoma College of Law
Email: JFORMAN@OU.EDU
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=250316
Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=960149
ABSTRACT: Far and away the biggest problem with the American
health care system has to do with coverage. In 2004, for example,
while 245.3 million Americans (84.2%) had some type of health
care coverage, 45.8 million (15.7%) were without coverage.
Clusters of individuals that tend to lack coverage include
employees of small business, workers who lose their jobs, workers
who decline employer coverage, low-income parents, low-income
childless adults, the near elderly, young adults, children, and
immigrants.
While incremental approaches could help particular groups,
ultimately, the government needs to redesign the health care
system to achieve nearly universal coverage. First, the exclusion
for employer-paid health insurance premiums should be capped at a
fixed-dollar amount and gradually replaced with a refundable tax
credit. Second, employers should be required to offer, but not
necessarily pay for, at least one state-approved health insurance
plan for employees (an employer mandate). Finally, individuals
should be required to get health insurance or lose tax benefits
such as personal exemption and standard deduction (an individual
mandate).
With universal coverage, we should finally be able to reduce our
health care system's burdensome administrative costs and get
medical treatment costs under control, and we should be able to
do so in a way that minimizes work disincentives. In short, we
can make universal health care work.
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"The Implications of Paying for Current Medicare"
Networks Financial Institute Policy Brief No. 2006-PB-14
Contact: THOMAS R. SAVING
Texas A&M University - Private Enterprise Research
Center
Email: t-saving@tamu.edu
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=329182
Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=947903
ABSTRACT: Medicare is America's second largest entitlement
program and this year will account for 14 percent of the Federal
budget, 3.2 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
and is growing rapidly so that by the end of the Medicare
Trustees 75-year projection period, 2080, the Medicare alone will
account for 11.0 percent of GDP and all health care will consume
42 percent of GDP. This paper estimates the effect of covering
the projected Medicare deficits with either additional taxes on
the working generation or additional Medicare premiums imposed on
the elderly. The additional taxation would require an increase in
the current 2.9 percent payroll tax to almost 20 percent by the
close of the Trustees 75-year projection period. If premiums are
used to cover the deficits, by the close of the Trustees 75-year
projection period the elderly would be faced with Medicare
premiums that would more than exhaust the total projected Social
Security check for a medium earner and use up more than
three-fourths of a high earner's Social Security check.
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"Crowd-Out Ten Years Later: Have Recent Public Insurance
Expansions Crowded Out Private Health Insurance?"
NBER Working Paper No. W12858
Contact: JONATHAN GRUBER
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) -
Department of Economics, National Bureau of
Economic Research (NBER)
Email: gruberj@mit.edu
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=17348
Co-Author: KOSALI ILAYPERUMA SIMON
Cornell University - Department of Policy Analysis
& Management (PAM), National Bureau of Economic
Research (NBER)
Email: kis6@cornell.edu
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=342287
Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=959133
ABSTRACT: The continued interest in public insurance expansions
as a means of covering the uninsured highlights the importance of
estimates of "crowd-out", or the extent to which such expansions
reduce private insurance coverage. Ten years ago, Cutler and
Gruber (1996) suggested that such crowd-out might be quite large,
but much subsequent research has questioned this conclusion. We
revisit this issue by using improved data and incorporating the
research approaches that have led to varying estimates. We focus
in particular on the public insurance expansions of the 1996-2002
period. Our results clearly show that crowd-out is significant;
the central tendency in our results is a crowd-out rate of about
60%. This finding emerges most strongly when we consider
family-level measures of public insurance eligibility. We also
find that recent anti-crowd-out provisions in public expansions
may have had the opposite effect, lowering take-up by the
uninsured faster than they lower crowd-out of private insurance.
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"The Economic Impact of Disability in the U.S., 1997: Total and
Incremental Estimates"
Author: MIRIAM CISTERNAS
MGC Data Services
Email: miriam@mgcdata.com
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=618318
Contact: EDWARD H. YELIN
University of California, San Francisco - School of
Medicine
Email: ed.yelin@ucsf.edu
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=374926
Co-Author: LAURA TRUPIN
University of California, San Francisco - Institute
for Health Policy Studies
Email: laura.trupin@ucsf.edu
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=618319
Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=899927
ABSTRACT: Objectives: To estimate the increment in medical care
expenditures and wage losses associated with disability in the
adult population after taking into account other characteristics
of adults with disabilities.
Methods: We used the 1997 Medical Expenditures Panel Survey
Household Component (MEPS), a national probability sample of the
non-institutionalized population, to tabulate all medical care
expenditures of the adult MEPS respondents, stratified by
disability status, and then used regression techniques to
estimate the increment of health care expenditures attributable
to disability. We also estimated the magnitude of the earnings
losses sustained by persons with disability using the same
methods.
Results: Adults with disability incurred mean total medical care
expenditures of $8,035, for a total of $182.6 billion. The mean
increment in medical care expenditures specifically attributable
to disability among those 18 and older was $2,953, for a total of
about $65.9 billion. Persons with disability ages 18 through 64
earned $10,191 less on average than other persons these ages, for
a total of $115.3 billion. The average increment in earnings
losses attributable to disability was $13,160, for a total of
$148.9 billion.
Conclusion: A large proportion of the total medical care
expenditures of adults with disability would occur in the absence
of the disability, but persons with disability actually earned
more than would be expected on the basis of their other
characteristics.
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"Workers' Compensation, Social Security Disability Insurance, and
the Offset: A Fact Sheet"
Social Security Bulletin, Vol. 65, No. 4
Author: VIRGINIA P. RENO
National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI)
Email: vreno@nasi.org
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=377090
Co-Author: CECILI THOMPSON WILLIAMS
Affiliation Unknown
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=378000
Contact: ISHITA SENGUPTA
National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI)
Email: isengupta@nasi.org
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=507246
Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=963482
ABSTRACT: This article offers a brief summary of the workers'
compensation and Social Security Disability Insurance programs.
Information highlighted includes the differences between the two
programs' types and terms of coverage. It compares the differing
patterns in workers' compensation and Social Security disability
benefits as a percentage of wages over the past few decades and
considers the potential causes for such trends. The article also
explains the offset provision included in the 1965 Social
Security Amendments, the intention behind the offset, and how and
when offsets are applied.