Consequences of the expansion of employer sponsored health insurance to dependent young adults

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 mandates that young adults be able to stay on parental health insurance until age 26. This paper creates a new algorithm to identify individuals with parental health insurance. Using an age/time difference-in-difference analysis, it finds that this federal mandate increased insurance coverage by 3-4 percentage points. Parental insurance rose by 7-9 percentage points, but own coverage fell by 4-5 percentage points. The mandate also caused substitution from full-time to part-time work and from four-year private to two-year public colleges. Treated young adults were also 2-3 percentage points more likely to have a personal doctor and 1-2 percentage points less likely to have forgone care due to cost, and their households spent an average of $45-$60 per three months less on health insurance.