I examine the impact of state policy decisions on the early impact of the ACA using data through the first half of 2014. I focus on the individual health insurance market, which includes plans purchased through exchanges as well as plans purchased directly from insurers. In this market, at least...

We develop a model of selection that incorporates a key element of recent health reforms: an individual mandate. We identify a set of key parameters for welfare analysis, allowing us to model the welfare impact of the actual policy as well as to estimate the socially optimal penalty level. Using...

In April 2006, the state of Massachusetts passed legislation aimed at achieving near universal health insurance coverage. A key provision of this legislation, and of the national legislation passed in March 2010, is an individual mandate to obtain health insurance. Although previous researchers...

In this paper, we develop a new censored quantile instrumental variable (CQIV) estimator and describe its properties and computation. The CQIV estimator combines Powell (1986) censored quantile regression (CQR) to deal semiparametrically with censoring, with a control variable approach to...

We implement an empirical test for selection into health insurance using changes in coverage induced by the introduction of mandated health insurance in Massachusetts. Our test examines changes in the cost of the newly insured relative to those who were insured prior to the reform. We find that...

We examine the long-term impact of expansions to Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program that occurred in the 1980's and 1990's. With administrative data from the IRS, we calculate longitudinal health insurance eligibility from birth to age 18 for children in cohorts affected...

We model the labor market impact of the three key provisions of the recent Massachusetts and national "mandate-based" health reforms: individual and employer mandates and expansions in publicly-subsidized coverage. Using our model, we characterize the compensating differential for...

Young people with private health insurance sometimes transition to the public health insurance safety net after they get sick, but popular sources of cross-sectional data obscure how frequently these transitions occur. We use longitudinal data on almost all hospital visits in New York from 1995...

Insurance induces a well-known tradeoff between the welfare gains from risk protection and the welfare losses from moral hazard. Empirical work traditionally estimates each side of the tradeoff separately, potentially yielding mutually inconsistent results. I develop a nonlinear budget set model...

We estimate marginal returns to medical care for at-risk newborns by comparing health outcomes and medical treatment provision on either side of common risk classifications, most notably the "very low birth weight" threshold at 1500 grams. First, using data on the census of US births in...