TY  - JOUR
AU  - Glied,Sherry
AU  - Jack,Kathrine
TI  - Macroeconomic Conditions, Health Care Costs, and the Distribution of Health Insurance
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10029
PY  - 2003
Y2  - October 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10029
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10029.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Sherry A. Glied
Mailman School of Public Health
Columbia University
Department of Health Policy and Management
600 West 168th Street, Room 610
New York, NY 10032
Tel: 212/305-0299
Fax: 212/305-3405
E-Mail: sag1@columbia.edu
AB  - Prior studies have examined the relationship between macroeconomic factors and health insurance for the adult population and have evaluated changes in the composition of health insurance across the income distribution. We combine these types of analysis and examine how labor market fluctuations, health care costs, income, and economic structure are related to the distribution of health insurance coverage across educational groups. We find that there are substantial differences in how these factors affect insurance coverage for different groups. Variations in unemployment are more important in determining insurance coverage for more educated people. The price of medical care, by contrast, is a much more important determinant of private coverage for the least educated than for the most educated. This finding is consistent with differences in the valuation of cost-increasing health care technologies across education groups.
ER  -