Workers on the Margin: Who Drops Health Coverage When Prices Rise?

We revisit the question of price elasticity of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) take-up by directly examining changes in the take-up of ESI at a large firm in response to exogenous changes in employee premium contributions. We find that, on average, a 10% increase in the employee's out-of-poc...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Edward N. Okeke, Richard A. Hirth, Kyle Grazier
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publishing 2010-02-01
Series:Inquiry: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5034/inquiryjrnl_47.01.33
Description
Summary:We revisit the question of price elasticity of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) take-up by directly examining changes in the take-up of ESI at a large firm in response to exogenous changes in employee premium contributions. We find that, on average, a 10% increase in the employee's out-of-pocket premium increases the probability of dropping coverage by approximately 1%. More importantly, we find heterogeneous impacts: married workers are much more price-sensitive than single employees, and lower-paid workers are disproportionately more likely to drop coverage than higher-paid workers. Elasticity estimates for employees below the 25 th percentile of salary distribution in our sample are nearly twice the average.
ISSN:0046-9580