TY  - JOUR
AU  - Cutler,David M.
TI  - Employee Costs and the Decline in Health Insurance Coverage
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9036
PY  - 2002
Y2  - July 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9036
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9036.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David M. Cutler
Department of Economics
Harvard University
1875 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA  02138
Tel: 617/496-5216
Fax: 617/496-8951
E-Mail: dcutler@harvard.edu
M1  - published as David M. Cutler. "Employee Costs and the Decline in Health Insurance Coverage," in David M. Cutler and Alan M. Garber, editors, "Frontiers in Health Policy Research, Volume 6" MIT Press (2003)

AB  - This paper examines why health insurance coverage fell despite the lengthy economic boom of the 1990s.  I show that insurance coverage declined primarily because fewer workers took up coverage when offered it, not because fewer workers were offered insurance or were eligible for it.  The reduction in take-up is associated with the increase in employee costs for health insurance.  Estimates suggest that increased costs to employees can explain the entire decline in take-up rates in the 1990s.
ER  -