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The Affordable Care Act as retiree health insurance: implications for retirement and Social Security claiming

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2018

ALAN L. GUSTMAN ,
THOMAS L. STEINMEIER  and
NAHID TABATABAI
ALAN L. GUSTMAN
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Dartmouth College, 6106 Rockefeller, Hanover, New Hampshire, 03755, USA (e-mail: alan.l.gustman@dartmouth.edu)
THOMAS L. STEINMEIER
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, USA
NAHID TABATABAI
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Dartmouth College, 6106 Rockefeller, Hanover, New Hampshire, 03755, USA
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Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on retirement. The first part of the paper is a difference-in-difference analysis of changes in retirement (and retirement expectations) before and after adoption of the ACA. We find no statistically significant evidence that ACA increased the propensity to retire or changed retirement expectations. The second part of the analysis is based on a structural retirement model. For those age 50 at the time ACA was introduced, the overall reduction in full-time work over the age span 54–65 is simulated to be about 0.1 percentage points. Data are from the Health and Retirement Study.

Keywords

Affordable Care ActretirementpensionsSocial Security
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Pension Economics & Finance , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , July 2019 , pp. 415 - 449
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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