IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejpol/v13y2021i2p378-407.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does the Individual Mandate Affect Insurance Coverage? Evidence from Tax Returns

Author

Listed:
  • Ithai Z. Lurie
  • Daniel W. Sacks
  • Bradley Heim

Abstract

We estimate the effect of the ACA's individual mandate on insurance coverage using regression discontinuity and regression kink designs with tax return data. We have four key results. First, the actual penalty paid per uninsured month is less than half the statutory amount. Second, nonetheless, we find visually clear and statistically significant responses to both extensive margin exposure to the mandate and to marginal increases in the mandate penalty. Third, we find substantial heterogeneity in who responds; men are especially responsive. Fourth, our estimates imply fairly small quantitative responses to the individual mandate, especially in the Health Insurance Exchanges.

Suggested Citation

  • Ithai Z. Lurie & Daniel W. Sacks & Bradley Heim, 2021. "Does the Individual Mandate Affect Insurance Coverage? Evidence from Tax Returns," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 378-407, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:13:y:2021:i:2:p:378-407
    DOI: 10.1257/pol.20180619
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20180619
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E118502V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20180619.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20180619.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pol.20180619?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aparna Soni, 2022. "The impact of the repeal of the federal individual insurance mandate on uninsurance," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 423-441, December.
    2. Benjamin R. Handel & Jonathan T. Kolstad, 2021. "The Affordable Care Act After a Decade: Industrial Organization of the Insurance Exchanges," NBER Working Papers 29178, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Isaac, Elliott & Jiang, Haibin, 2022. "Tax-Based Marriage Incentives in the Affordable Care Act," IZA Discussion Papers 15331, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Guo, Hao & Zou, Miaomiao & Liu, Yue, 2023. "Effects of the affordable care act on insurance coverage and labor supply for noncitizen immigrants," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health
    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:13:y:2021:i:2:p:378-407. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.