Disability Insurance and Health Insurance Reform

Evidence from Massachusetts

Nicole Maestas, Kathleen J. Mullen, Alexander Strand

ResearchPosted on rand.org May 1, 2014Published in: American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, v. 104, no. 5, May 2014, p. 329-335

As health insurance becomes available outside of the employment relationship as a result of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the cost of applying for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI)–potentially going without health insurance coverage during a waiting period totaling 29 months from disability onset–will decline for many people with employer-sponsored health insurance. At the same time, the value of SSDI and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) participation will decline for individuals who otherwise lacked access to health insurance. We study the 2006 Massachusetts health insurance reform to estimate the potential effects of the ACA on SSDI and SSI applications.

Read More

Topics

Document Details

  • Copyright: American Economic Association
  • Availability: Non-RAND
  • Year: 2014
  • Pages: 7
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.7249/pubs
  • Document Number: EP-51843

This publication is part of the RAND external publication series. Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.

RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.

Version Note

This publication supersedes a previous version published in 2014 (WR-1029).