We investigate whether the removal of high-cost individuals from private insurance markets leads to greater coverage for individuals who are similar but not as high cost. Using data on insurance coverage from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we estimate the effect of the extension of Medicare...

In this paper, we estimate the effect of the tax preference for health insurance on health care spending using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys from 1996–2005. We use the fact that Social Security taxes are only levied on earnings below a statutory threshold to identify the...

The tax preference for employer-sponsored health insurance contributes to the very high level of health spending in the United States. In this paper, we consider the consequences for spending of one approach to reducing this preference: giving people with health insurance an additional deduction...

In the United States, the size and composition of the federal budget is arguably the most important single issue of the 1990's, yet most debates and commentaries on the subject are largely uninformed. Virtually no one - whether government official, member of Congress, journalist, or taxpayer -...