Health Insurance and Part-Time Employment: The Influence of the Affordable Care Act

Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), part-time workers were much less likely than full-time workers to have health insurance. The ACA included multiple provisions intended to raise health insurance coverage rates, including a mandate that employers provide affordable coverage to full-time workers, a requirement that dependents be allowed to remain on their parents’ plan until age 26, extensions of Medicaid coverage, and the establishment of health insurance exchanges on which lower-income households could purchase subsidized coverage. Implementation of these provisions was associated with a decline in the full-time/part-time coverage gap from 6.5 percentage points in 2013 to 3.1 percentage points in 2021. Increases in Medicaid coverage and insurance purchased on the exchanges reduced were the largest contributors to the reduction in the full-time/part-time coverage gap.