The effect of health insurance on workers' compensation filing: Evidence from the affordable care act's age-based threshold for dependent coverage.
This paper identifies the effect of health insurance on workers' compensation (WC) filing for young adults by implementing a regression discontinuity design using WC medical claims data from Texas. The results suggest health insurance factors into the decision to have WC pay for discretionary care. The implied instrumental variables estimates suggest a ten-percentage-point decrease in health insurance coverage increases WC bills by 15.3 percent. Despite the large impact of health insurance on the number of WC bills, the additional cost to WC at age 26 appears to be small as most of the increase comes from small bills.
W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 300 S. Westnedge Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI 49007-4686, United States. Electronic address: dillender@upjohn.org.
Marcus
M
Dillender
D000328:Adult; D003657:Decision Making / Q000941:ethics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019458:Insurance Coverage / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D058991:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013781:Texas; D014481:United States; D014942:Workers' Compensation / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055815:Young Adult
Affordable Care Act; Discretionary medical care; Health insurance; Moral hazard; Payment source; Workers’ compensation