Keeping what you like: grandfathering and health insurance coverage take-up rates under the ACA

Nour Kattih, Fady Mansour () and Franklin Mixon
Additional contact information
Nour Kattih: Middle Tennessee State University
Fady Mansour: Columbus State University

Journal of Economics and Finance, 2021, vol. 45, issue 1, No 9, 188-199

Abstract: Abstract According to various reports, between 1.8 million and 4.7 million health insurance plans were replaced shortly after passage of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 with new ACA-compliant plans. In order to limit this occurrence, provisions in the ACA included “grandfathering,” which allowed many Americans to retain health insurance coverage that was in place on or before the ACA was signed into law. These health insurance plans were in many cases favored by individuals and employees because they had been customized, unlike many of the new non-grandfathered plans. This study explores the effect of grandfathering on health insurance coverage take-up rates by employees, given that there are some key differences between grandfathered and non-grandfathered plans that perhaps make the former relatively more attractive to employees. Using survey data from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research Educational Trust, difference-in-difference regressions reported here suggest that take-up rates for grandfathered health insurance plans are generally higher than those for non-grandfathered plans. Estimates generally place these take-up rate differences, favoring grandfathered plans, somewhere between 2.9 and 8.2 percentage points, depending on plan type, firm size and firm location. This finding suggests that more flexible plans are needed to increase employer-sponsored health insurance coverage.

Keywords: Health insurance coverage take-up rates; Grandfathered health plans; Affordable care act; I13; I18; G22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12197-020-09530-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jecfin:v:45:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s12197-020-09530-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/12197/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s12197-020-09530-8

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economics and Finance is currently edited by James Payne

More articles in Journal of Economics and Finance from Springer, Academy of Economics and Finance Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().