On the Importance and Intrinsic Difficulties of Incorporating Health Insurance Benefits in Absolute Poverty Trends.

Context: US government poverty measures do not include health insurance in the threshold or health insurance benefits in resources. Yet the 2019 Economic Report of the President presented long-term trends using the full-income poverty measure (FPM), which includes health insurance benefits as resources. A 2021 technical advisory report recommended statistical agencies produce absolute poverty trends with and without health insurance.

Health Savings Accounts No Longer Promote Consumer Cost-Consciousness.

Two decades ago Congress enabled Americans to open tax-favored health savings accounts (HSAs) in conjunction with qualifying high-deductible health plans (HDHPs). This HSA tax break is regressive: Higher-income Americans are more likely to have HSAs and fund them at higher levels. Proponents, however, have argued that this regressivity is offset by reductions in wasteful health care spending because consumers with HDHPs are more cost-conscious in their use of care.

Improving estimates of Medicaid's effect on poverty: Measures and counterfactuals.

Objective: To re-evaluate the effect of Medicaid on poverty using a poverty measure that accounts for health insurance needs and benefits and an evaluation approach that reflects disparities in access to alternative coverage.

Data Sources: The Current Population Survey (CPS) for calendar year 2015.

Study Design: We estimate the effect of losing Medicaid on poverty, combining two previous approaches: (1) A propensity impact, which simulates a no-Medicaid counterfactual incorporating changes to health insurance and medical out-of-pocket spending, using the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM).

Estimating The Effects Of Health Insurance And Other Social Programs On Poverty Under The Affordable Care Act.

The effects of health insurance on poverty have been difficult to ascertain because US poverty measures have not taken into account the need for health care and the value of health benefits. We developed the first US poverty measure to include the need for health insurance and to count health insurance benefits as resources available to meet that need-in other words, a health-inclusive poverty measure. We estimated the direct effects of health insurance benefits on health-inclusive poverty for people younger than age sixty-five, comparing the impacts of different health insurance programs and of nonhealth means-tested cash and in-kind benefits, refundable tax credits, and nonhealth social insurance programs.