The primary objective of this paper is to improve our understanding of the historic relationship between state and national macroeconomic climate and the health insurance coverage of Americans. The secondary objective of this paper is to use the historic findings to estimate how the number of...

This paper investigates the impact of the macroeconomy on the health insurance coverage of Americans using panel data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) for 2004-2010, a period that includes the Great Recession of 2007-09. We find that a one percentage point increase in...

The primary objective of this paper is to improve our understanding of the historic relationship between state and national macroeconomic climate and the health insurance coverage of Americans. The secondary objective of this paper is to use the historic findings to estimate how the number of...

This paper tests whether income affects the body weight and clinical weight classification of elderly Americans using a natural experiment that led otherwise identical retirees to receive significantly different Social Security payments based on their year of birth. We exploit this natural...

Containing health care expenditures and extending health insurance coverage have been the most important health care policy issues in the U.S. Health care expenditures surpassed $2.3 trillion in 2008, more than three times the $714 billion spent in 1990 (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid...

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will dramatically alter health insurance markets and the sources through which individuals obtain coverage. As the ACA is implemented, it is essential to monitor the intended and the unintended consequences of these regulations. To evaluate the changes in health...

We study the impact of the 65-percent federal health insurance premium subsidy, which aimed to help unemployed workers retain coverage and was in effect from February 2009 to May 2010 through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). In doing so, we also estimate the price elasticity of...