Gruber J
MIT Department of Economics and NBER, 50 Memorial Drive, E52-355, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
Int J Health Care Finance Econ. 2001 Sep-Dec;1(3-4):293-304. doi: 10.1023/a:1013719702921.
A central question in health economics is the extent to which this tax subsidization matters for the health insurance coverage of the U.S. population. I assess the impact of taxes on health insurance by using the considerable existing variation in tax subsidies, both at a point in time and across time. I do so by putting together data from more than a decade of Current Population Survey (CPS) data sets, and matching to workers in those data sets their tax subsidies to health insurance coverage. I find that the elasticity of insurance eligibility of workers is at least -0.6, and that the elasticity of own insurance coverage is roughly similar; the results imply that most of the impact of taxes on insurance coverage arise through firm offering and eligibility decisions. I also find that higher tax rates induce more private coverage through other sources, but less public coverage, so that overall there is a reduction in the rate of uninsurance that is comparable to the change in own employer-provided insurance coverage.
健康经济学中的一个核心问题是，这种税收补贴对美国人口的医疗保险覆盖范围有多大影响。我通过利用税收补贴在某一时刻以及不同时间的大量现有差异，来评估税收对医疗保险的影响。我将十多年来当前人口调查（CPS）数据集的数据整合在一起，并将这些数据集中工人的税收补贴与他们的医疗保险覆盖情况进行匹配，以此来进行评估。我发现，工人保险资格的弹性至少为-0.6，自身保险覆盖的弹性大致相似；结果表明，税收对保险覆盖的大部分影响是通过公司提供保险和资格决策产生的。我还发现，较高的税率会促使更多人通过其他途径获得私人保险，但公共保险覆盖会减少，因此总体而言，未参保率的下降幅度与自身雇主提供的保险覆盖变化相当。
