An early look at changes in employer-sponsored insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Abstract

Critics frequently characterize the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as a threat to the survival of employer-sponsored insurance. The Medicaid expansion and Marketplace subsidies could adversely affect employers' incentives to offer health insurance and workers' incentives to take up such offers. This article takes advantage of timely data from the Health Reform Monitoring Survey for June2013 through September2014 to examine, from the perspective of workers, early changes in offer, take-up, and coverage rates for employer-sponsored insurance under the ACA. We found no evidence that any of these rates have declined under the ACA. They have, in fact, remained constant: around 82percent, 86percent, and 71percent, respectively, for all workers and around 63percent, 71percent, and 45percent, respectively, for low-income workers. To date, the ACA has had no effect on employer coverage. Economic incentives for workers to obtain coverage from employers remain strong.