Working Paper

Health-care reform or labor market reform? a quantitative analysis of the Affordable Care Act

Abstract: An equilibrium model with ?rm and worker heterogeneity is constructed to analyze labor market and welfare implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Our model implies a signi?cant reduction in the uninsured rate from 22.6 percent to 5.6 percent. {{p}} The model predicts a moderate positive welfare gain from the ACA, due to redistribution of income through Health Insurance Subsidies at the Exchange as well as Medicaid expansion. About 2.1 million more part-time jobs are created under the ACA, in expense of 1.6 million full-time jobs, mainly because the link between full-time employment and health insurance is weakened. The model predicts a small negative effect on total hours worked (0.36%), partly because of the general equilibrium effect.

Keywords: Health insurance; Affordable Care Act; Labor market; ;

JEL Classification: D91; E24; E65; I10;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City

Part of Series: Research Working Paper

Publication Date: 2015-09-01

Number: RWP 15-10

Pages: 56 pages