The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010 created a temporary reinsurance program for sponsors of employment-based health plans that provide retiree health benefits to retirees who are over age 55 and not yet eligible for the Medicare program. The program provides an 80...

This paper examines how current health reform legislation being debated in Congress will impact the future of retiree health benefits. The paper also provides background on the impact of private-sector accounting rule changes on the availability of retiree health benefits since the mid-1990s;...

2014 marks the 10-year anniversary of the introduction of health savings accounts (HSAs), created by Congress in 2003. In 2013, enrollment in HSA-eligible health plans was estimated to range from 15.5 million to 20.4 million policyholders and their dependents. Nearly 11 million accounts holding...

This paper constructs and estimates a dynamic model of the evolution of health for those over the age of 50 and then embeds that model of health dynamics in a structural, econometric model of retirement and saving. The health model traces the effects of smoking, obesity, alcohol consumption,...

This paper examines whether offering a health savings account (HSA)-eligible health plan for free, alongside other health plan options with a premium, alters employee enrollment choices; and if responders differ by health status. The data for this study come from two large employers and cover...

This paper examines the notion that employers have reached a tipping point over health costs and will cease offering health care benefits to their workers. In the end, an evaluation of recent data does not suggest that the end of employment-based health benefits is upon us. However, the message...

This paper presents findings from the 2007 EBRI/Commonwealth Fund Consumerism in Health Care Survey. Findings from the 2007 survey are compared with our findings from 2005 and 2006. In 2007, 2 percent of the population was enrolled in a consumer-driven health plan (CDHP), up from 1 percent in...

This paper reviews recent trends in coverage for workers by hours worked and firm size. It examines data from the U.S. Census Bureau's most recent Current Population Survey. It examines trends in coverage for workers employed full time, 30-39 hours, and fewer than 30 hours. The Patient...

In December 2015 Congress enacted a two-year delay in the controversial excise tax on high-cost health plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), postponing its effective date from 2018 to 2020 and making a number of other modest changes to the tax. Nevertheless, the tax remains wildly unpopular...