Applying our labor supply estimates directly to this population, we predict a decline in employment of between 530,000 and 940,000 in response to this group of individuals being made newly eligible for free or heavily subsidized health insurance. This would represent a decline in the aggregate employment rate of between 0.3 and 0.6 percentage points from this single component of the ACA.
The researchers arrive at these numbers by examining the labor market impact of Tennessee’s 2005 decision to discontinue its expansion of TennCare, the state’s Medicaid system. They found that the TennCare disenrollment caused “a large and immediate labor supply increase” as folks who lost coverage starting looking for work. More:
Indeed, we find a similarly large increase in private health insurance following the disenrollment, suggesting that public health insurance had been “crowding out” private health insurance When we explore the dynamic effects of the disenrollment, we find an immediate increase in job search behavior and a steady rise in both employment and health insurance coverage. The pattern of changes in labor supply and the crowdout behavior suggest that disenrollees entered the labor market and gained employment in order to procure health insurance. This finding is consistent with both.
And Obamacare would cause the reverse effect, pushing those getting subsidized coverage to leave the labor force. The result is especially worrisome for the health of working America if you combine it with Obamacare’s possible nudge toward more part-time workers in place of full-time workers.
(Excerpt) Read more at aei-ideas.org ...
