PolicyArchive - Bringing the World's Policy Research Online

How Competitive Are State Health Insurance Markets?

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

This analysis assesses the competitiveness of state insurance markets for individuals and small businesses to establish a baseline as implementation of the health reform law proceeds.

Medicare Part D Data Spotlight: A First Look at Part D Plan Offerings in 2012

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

This data spotlight examines the stand-alone Part D drug plan options available to Medicare beneficiaries in the coming year.

Uniform Coverage Summaries for Consumers

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

This brief explains the proposed federal rule that requires private health plans to provide a short, easy-to-read uniform summary of benefits and coverage to all health insurance applicants and enrollees.

Examining Medicaid Managed Long-Term Service and Support Programs: Key Issues To ConsiderM

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

This issue brief examines key issues for states to consider if they are contemplating a shift to covering new populations and long-term services and support benefits through capitated payments to traditional risk-based managed care organizations (MCOs).

Adolescent Health: Coverage and Access to Care

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

This issue brief on adolescent health examines access to health services for adolescents, their insurance coverage, and the role of state and federal policies in shaping access to care.

State Options That Expand Access to Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

This background paper examines various aspects of the Medicaid program that can expand access to home and community-based services (HCBS) and rebalance long-term care spending in favor of HCBS.

Medicaid Enrollment and Expenditures by Federal Core Requirements and State Options

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

This analysis uses 2007 data to examine the proportion of Medicaid enrollment and spending attributable to state expansion enrollees versus federal core enrollees and presents estimates of spending on mandatory versus optional health benefits across all enrollee types.

What Explains Variation in Disability Application Rates Across States?

Tue, 3 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) applications and benefit receipts vary greatly by state, which has led to concerns about potential inconsistencies in the way that states apply disability standards. This possibility has prompted numerous Congressional hearings and reports, and led the Social Security Advisory Board to express concern about the Social Security Administration’s ability to disentangle the potential causes. This brief, using a longer time period and more comprehensive list of variables than other studies, explores the extent to which health, demographic, and employment characteristics �" as well as state policies or politics �" explain the variation across states. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section describes an individual’s SSDI application decision and factors that may influence state-level application rates. The second section presents variables used to determine the underlying causes of the state-level variation in application rates. The third section summarizes the results. The conclusion is that the health, demographic, and employment characteristics of each state explain the largest variations in SSDI application rates. Politics have little effect. Interestingly, states that require employers to provide temporary disability insurance have lower SSDI application rates.

An Agenda to Strengthen Our Right to Know: Empowering Citizens with Environmental, Health, and Safety Information

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

OMB Watch (Organization : U.S.)

Public engagement and access to environmental and public health information are vital democratic tools. A lack of government openness impairs everything from preventing �" and cleaning up �" oil spills to protecting children from toxic chemicals. The need to break down information barriers and bring the public back into the policymaking process is greater than ever. A lack of access to quality information �" and to policymakers �" hurts people and the landscapes we cherish and depend on. This report includes a comprehensive set of recommendations that are aimed at filling critical data gaps and empowering the American people to protect themselves, their families, and their communities from toxic pollution and other environmental health hazards.

OMB Watcher: Vol. 12 No. 14-23

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

OMB Watch (Organization : U.S.)

A biweekly publication of OMB Watch, delivering analysis and updates to promote open government, accountability, and citizen participation.

OMB Watcher: Vol. 12 No. 1-13

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

OMB Watch (Organization : U.S.)

A biweekly publication of OMB Watch, delivering analysis and updates to promote open government, accountability, and citizen participation.

2011 Missouri Medicaid Basics

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Missouri Foundation for Health

This report aims to help readers understand the Missouri Medicaid program and how it currently covers low-income residents. The report includes information on Medicaid eligibility, children's Medicaid issues, covered services, how and where care is delivered, how it is funded, how it is affected by federal health reform, who is enrolled, and other updates.

Understanding Medicare

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

This report explains how health insurance under Medicare works, including: (1) benefits; (2) eligibility; (3) cost-sharing; (4) provider reimbursement; and (5) financing and expenditures. It also explains recent Affordable Care Act changes to Medicare that are intended to reduce costs and improve care.

Do Low-Income Workers Benefit From 401(k) Plans?

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

401(k) plans �" the main retirement savings vehicle for millions of workers �" allow participants to save on a tax-deferred basis. This tax incentive is more valuable to workers in high-income families than workers in low-income families because they face higher marginal income tax rates. Not surprisingly, then, studies of the distributional effects of 401(k)s find that they mainly benefit high-income workers. However, these studies assume that employer contributions to 401(k)s do not affect the total compensation that each worker receives �" that is, every worker “pays for” employer contributions in the form of lower wages. This brief challenges this assumption, testing whether employer contributions may actually increase total compensation for low-income workers, who may be more reluctant than high-income workers to accept wage reductions in exchange for retirement saving contributions. The brief is organized as follows. The first section provides background on 401(k)s, specifically their tax treatment and the rationale for employer contributions. The second section explores the traditional theory of how fringe benefits affect workers’ total compensation and why the theory might not uniformly hold for employer contributions to 401(k)s. The third section describes an experiment to test this theory and presents the results. The final section concludes that additional employer 401(k) contributions appear to reduce wages only modestly for low-income workers, resulting in higher total compensation for these workers. These results suggest that traditional analyses may understate the benefits that 401(k)s provide for rank-and-file workers.

The Impact of Unemployment Insurance Extensions on Disability Insurance Application and Allowance Rates

Fri, 4 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

Both unemployment insurance (UI) extensions and the availability of disability benefits have disincentive effects on job search. But UI extensions can reduce the efficiency cost of disability benefits if UI recipients delay disability application until they exhaust their unemployment benefits. This paper, the first to focus on the effect of UI extensions on disability applications, investigates whether UI eligibility, extension, and exhaustion affect the timing of disability applications and the composition of the applicant pool. Jobless individuals are significantly less likely to apply to Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) during UI extensions, and significantly more likely to apply when UI is ultimately exhausted. Healthier potential applicants appear more likely to delay, as state allowance rates increase after a new UI extension. Though simulations find that extensions do not decrease SSDI costs, the benefits of UI extensions still may be understated �" permanent disability benefits are diverted to shorter-run unemployment benefits and, potentially, new jobs, while easing the burden on the nearly insolvent SSDI Trust Fund.

Do Couples Self-Insure? The Effect of Informal Care on a Couple's Labor Supply

Fri, 4 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

How does informal care provision to an elderly parent affect the labor supply outcomes of a couple? Previous work examines the relationship between caregiving and the labor market decisions of the care provider, but ignores any labor supply response of the spouse to such decisions. Using data from the Health and Retirement Survey, we examine how informal care provision affects the labor supply of both members of a couple, at both the intensive and extensive margins. Such analysis is especially important for evaluating informal care’s potential effect on retirement timing and household wealth accumulation. We find that providing personal care to an elderly parent reduces a married man’s chance of working by 3.2 percentage points, but providing such care does not affect a married woman’s chance of working. Additionally, male labor force decisions remain inelastic in response to the wife’s caregiving behavior. Working married women do adjust their hours of work in response to caregiving, but in the opposite direction that within-couple insurance would suggest. Instead, the woman increases her work by one hour a week if she is the only care provider, and decreases her work when the husband is the only care provider. When both members of the couple provide informal care these effects cancel out.

How Prepared are State and Local Workers for Retirement

Fri, 4 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

A widespread perception is that state-local government workers receive high pension benefits which, combined with Social Security, provide more than adequate retirement income. This study uses the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and actuarial reports to test this hypothesis. The major finding from the HRS analysis is that most households with state-local employment end up with replacement rates that, while on average higher than those in the private sector, are well below the 80 percent needed to maintain pre-retirement living standards. Even those households with a long-service state-local worker �" those who spend more than half of their careers in public employment �" have a median replacement rate, including Social Security, of only 72 percent. And this group accounts for less than 30 percent of state-local households. The remaining 70 percent of households with a short- or medium-tenure state-local worker have replacement rates of 48 percent and 57 percent, respectively. Adding income from financial assets still leaves most state-local households short of the target.

How Prepared Are State and Local Workers for Retirement?

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

A widespread perception is that state-local government workers receive high pension benefits which, combined with Social Security, provide more than adequate retirement income. The perception is consistent with multiplying the 2-percent benefit factor in most plan formulae by a 35- to 40-year career and adding a Social Security benefit. But this calculation assumes that individuals spend enough of their career in the public sector to produce such a retirement outcome. This brief summarizes the results of a paper that uses the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and actuarial reports published by state and local pension systems to test the hypothesis that state-local workers have more than enough money for retirement.

Comparing Wealth in Retirement: State-Local versus Private Sector Workers

Fri, 7 Oct 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

The compensation of public employees is a hot topic in the wake of the financial crisis. Funded levels of public pension plans declined sharply at the same time that state and local revenues collapsed. As a result, plan sponsors in most states are looking for ways to reduce pension costs. The assumption �" either explicit or implied �" is that pensions are too generous. Pensions, of course, are just one part of compensation, so any comparison must also consider wages and other benefits. The question of comparability of compensation in the state-local and private sectors was the focus of a recent Issue in Brief.1 The conclusion was that wages for workers with similar characteristics, education, and experience were higher in the private sector than the public, but benefits for state-local workers roughly offset the wage penalty. Taken as a whole, compensation in the two sectors is roughly comparable.

Do Low-Income Workers Benefit from 401(k) Plans?

Mon, 3 Oct 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

Economists frequently assume that employees “pay for” employer-provided fringe benefits, such as contributions to retirement plans, in the form of reduced wages. Because low-income employees receive little tax benefit from saving in qualified retirement plans, however, and may prefer immediate consumption to additional retirement accruals, they may not be willing to accept a one dollar reduction in their wage in return for an additional dollar contributed to their 401(k) plan, while high income workers may be willing to give up more than a dollar in wages to get the tax benefit...