title: Health risk and access to employer-provided health insurance.
abstract: The attractiveness of a job offering health benefits increases with a worker's expected medical expenditures. At the same time, employers have an incentive to screen out high-risk workers. Evidence from the 1984 Survey of Income and Program Participation indicates that employer screening dominates high-risk workers' desire to select jobs that offer insurance. Workers who describe their health as fair or poor, report difficulty with physical tasks, or have a work-related disability are less likely to receive employer-provided health insurance than healthy workers. Part of this effect is explained by the negative impact of poor health on earnings and labor supply.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Management, University of California, Irvine 92717-3125, USA.
authors.forename: T C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Buchmueller
mesh_terms: D000206:Actuarial Analysis; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006264:Health Benefit Plans, Employee / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006291:Health Policy; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D015273:Insurance Selection Bias; D008297:Male; D017057:Medically Uninsured / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008875:Middle Aged; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States