No abstract

This article considers the extent to which Affordable Care Act state Medicaid expansions alleviated the burden of out-of-pocket costs associated with obtaining health insurance and medical care using data from the 2011 to 2016 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement. Using a difference-in-differences framework, the analysis examines effects of the Medicaid expansions on out-of-pocket expenditures for health insurance premiums and medical care, comparing expenditures across expansion and nonexpansion states before and after the expansions were implemented, performing separate analyses for individuals with family income at various eligibility cutoff levels in the first and second years of expansion implementation. The findings suggest that the expansions were associated with a relatively larger likelihood of having zero premium expenditures and of having zero nonpremium medical out-of-pocket expenditures for low-income individuals. These findings suggest that the expansions were effective in reducing medical out-of-pocket expenditures.

This paper investigates the effect of the Affordable Care Act young adult provision on fertility and related outcomes. The expected effect of the provision on fertility is not clear ex ante. By expanding insurance coverage to young adults, the provision may affect fertility directly through expanded options for obtaining contraceptives as well as through expanded options for obtaining pregnancy-, birth-, and infant-related care, and these may lead to decreased or increased fertility, respectively. In addition, the provision may also affect fertility indirectly through marriage or labor markets, and the direction and magnitude of these effects is difficult to determine. This paper considers the effect of the provision on fertility as well as the contributing channels by applying difference-in-differences-type methods using the 2008-Results suggest that the provision is associated with decreases in the likelihood of having given birth and abortion rates and an increase in the likelihood of using long-term hormonal contraceptives.

No abstract

Over recent decades, Americans have transitioned from working in active jobs to working in sedentary jobs, and there have been dramatic increases in hours worked for certain demographic groups. While a body of research documents that time spent working is associated with increased body mass index (BMI), this paper explores possible mechanisms for that relationship using time use data. This paper finds that, for workers in non-strenuous jobs, 10 additional hours spent working are associated with an increase in BMI of 0.424 for women and 0.197 for men, representing an increase of 2.5 and 1.4 pounds, respectively. The paper does not find a relationship between working time and BMI for workers in strenuous jobs. For workers in non-strenuous jobs, the effect of time spent working on BMI becomes smaller after accounting for time spent sleeping for both men and women and time spent in exercise and food preparation for women only; the effect becomes larger after accounting for screen time for both men and women and time spent in secondary eating and commuting for women only. Screen time is the single time use channel associated with the largest differences in the estimated effect of time spent working on BMI for both women and men employed in non-strenuous jobs. After controlling for all time use channels, the effect of hours worked on BMI decreases for women, but increases for men. These findings suggest plausible mechanisms for the association between time spent working and obesity.