The limitations inherent in the traditional pension models – defined contribution (DC) and defined benefit (DB) – are facing increased scrutiny and new models are developing in response to these pressures. Due to extremely low interest rates and the volatility of equity markets, over the past several years many DB pension plans have suffered significant solvency deficits. As a result, plan sponsors have sought relief from higher contributions required under pension laws. Temporary relief measures granted in certain jurisdictions have not addressed the underlying issues but have provided merely short-term solutions. At the other end of the spectrum, DC plans incorporate both predictable contributions and an alignment of risk and reward for plan members, but they leave complicated investment decision-making to plan members who frequently have no investment expertise. Furthermore, DC plans fail to capture substantial value available from pooling of costs, investment risk and longevity risk among plan members. We need to move beyond the DB versus DC debate towards a middle-ground option that incorporates some of the positive attributes of both designs. Target-benefit plans (TBPs) can deliver the cost predictability of DC plans combined with a defined-benefit-type pension to retirees, with predictable contribution levels, and enable pooling of longevity and investment risks. This Commentary reviews the recent New Brunswick shared risk pension legislation and draws lessons that can be applied to the design of similar TBP legislation elsewhere. In most Canadian jurisdictions, pension laws do not currently accommodate single-employer TBPs – although several provinces have taken initial steps. Existing legislation generally prohibits reduction of accrued benefits outside of the multi-employer unionized environment, and a key element of TBPs is their ability to let benefits vary as a function of the funding status of the plan. Tax rules must be changed to accommodate single-employer TBPs. As well, clear and logical accounting guidance for TBPs must be established to facilitate the emergence of such plans. Also, a jurisdictions wishes to permit conversion of accrued benefits to target benefits, legislative change is required. In New Brunswick, accrued benefits may be converted, which can promote intergenerational equity. Pension standards laws across the country will have to be changed in order to facilitate the emergence of new design options such as single-employer TBPs.
{"title":"Target- Benefit Plans in Canada – An Innovation Worth Expanding","authors":"Jana Steele, Angela Maserolle, Mel Bartlett","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2464197","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2464197","url":null,"abstract":"The limitations inherent in the traditional pension models – defined contribution (DC) and defined benefit (DB) – are facing increased scrutiny and new models are developing in response to these pressures. Due to extremely low interest rates and the volatility of equity markets, over the past several years many DB pension plans have suffered significant solvency deficits. As a result, plan sponsors have sought relief from higher contributions required under pension laws. Temporary relief measures granted in certain jurisdictions have not addressed the underlying issues but have provided merely short-term solutions. At the other end of the spectrum, DC plans incorporate both predictable contributions and an alignment of risk and reward for plan members, but they leave complicated investment decision-making to plan members who frequently have no investment expertise. Furthermore, DC plans fail to capture substantial value available from pooling of costs, investment risk and longevity risk among plan members. We need to move beyond the DB versus DC debate towards a middle-ground option that incorporates some of the positive attributes of both designs. Target-benefit plans (TBPs) can deliver the cost predictability of DC plans combined with a defined-benefit-type pension to retirees, with predictable contribution levels, and enable pooling of longevity and investment risks. This Commentary reviews the recent New Brunswick shared risk pension legislation and draws lessons that can be applied to the design of similar TBP legislation elsewhere. In most Canadian jurisdictions, pension laws do not currently accommodate single-employer TBPs – although several provinces have taken initial steps. Existing legislation generally prohibits reduction of accrued benefits outside of the multi-employer unionized environment, and a key element of TBPs is their ability to let benefits vary as a function of the funding status of the plan. Tax rules must be changed to accommodate single-employer TBPs. As well, clear and logical accounting guidance for TBPs must be established to facilitate the emergence of such plans. Also, a jurisdictions wishes to permit conversion of accrued benefits to target benefits, legislative change is required. In New Brunswick, accrued benefits may be converted, which can promote intergenerational equity. Pension standards laws across the country will have to be changed in order to facilitate the emergence of new design options such as single-employer TBPs.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78840382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law by President Barack Obama. The ACA has three fundamental goals: (1) Increase access to health care; (2) Reduce the cost of health care; and (3) Improve the quality of health care. To reduce costs and improve quality, section 3022 of the ACA promotes the formation and operation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to treat Medicare beneficiaries in the new Medicare Shared Savings Program (SSP). ACOs are made up of competing health care providers collaborating to deliver efficient, coordinated care that meets quality performance and cost-saving standards that are determined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). ACOs may take many forms, “including networks of individual practices, partnerships, hospitals, [joint ventures] and other health care professionals.” The ACA hopes to encourage new innovative delivery models and does not place heavy restrictions on the form or type of entity sufficient to gain the status of ACO.“It is expected that most health care providers that form ACOs for Medicare beneficiaries will also seek to use the ACO structure for their commercially-insured patients.” In order to produce cost-saving efficiencies, ACOs will look to negotiate contracts between their participating providers, including price terms. ACOs negotiating with private payers raises antitrust concerns over possible price fixing and exercise of market power to restrain trade. ACO practices that restrain trade would undermine the ACA’s attempt to reduce costs and improve quality by further impairing the health care market and harming consumers/patients.In 2011, CMS published the final rule implementing section 3022 of the ACA which creates the Medicare Shared Savings Program and encourages the creation of ACOs. The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission are the two government agencies charged with enforcing antitrust law. The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice have recently published guidance laying out antitrust enforcement as it relates to Accountable Care Organizations.There are three significant developments that flow from the guidance: 1) ACOs engaged in joint price negotiations with commercial health plans will be treated under the “rule of reason” if the ACO meets CMS’ eligibility standards for SSP participation; 2) ACOs that control up to 30% of market shares in any of its “common services” will be protected by a “safety zone” which shields the ACO from antitrust challenge absent extraordinary circumstances and 3) the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice scrapped a mandatory review of ACOs that might wield market power and replaced it with a voluntary review process that can help ACOs that fall outside the safety zone to better assess its chances of raising antitrust concerns.As mentioned, collaboration between competing providers in ACOs raises antitrust concerns that providers may engage in ho
2010年，奥巴马总统签署了《患者保护和平价医疗法案》(ACA)。ACA有三个基本目标:(1)增加获得医疗保健的机会;(2)降低保健费用;(3)提高卫生保健质量。为了降低成本和提高质量，ACA第3022条促进了责任医疗组织(ACOs)的形成和运作，以治疗新的医疗保险共享储蓄计划(SSP)中的医疗保险受益人。ACOs由相互竞争的医疗保健提供者组成，他们合作提供高效、协调的医疗服务，以满足医疗保险和医疗补助服务中心(CMS)确定的质量绩效和成本节约标准。ACOs可以采取多种形式，“包括个人执业、合作伙伴、医院、[合资企业]和其他卫生保健专业人员的网络。”ACA希望鼓励新的创新交付模式，并没有对足以获得ACO地位的实体的形式或类型施加严格限制。“预计大多数为医疗保险受益人组建ACOs的医疗服务提供者也将寻求为他们的商业保险患者使用ACOs结构。”为了产生节约成本的效率，ACOs将寻求在其参与的供应商之间谈判合同，包括价格条款。ACOs与私人支付者的谈判引发了反垄断方面的担忧，即可能存在价格操纵和行使市场力量以限制贸易的行为。《平价医疗法》限制贸易的做法会进一步损害医疗保健市场，伤害消费者/患者，从而破坏《平价医疗法》降低成本和提高质量的努力。2011年，CMS发布了实施ACA第3022条的最终规则，该规则创建了医疗保险共享储蓄计划，并鼓励创建ACOs。司法部和联邦贸易委员会是负责执行反垄断法的两个政府机构。美国联邦贸易委员会(Federal Trade Commission)和司法部(Department of Justice)最近发布了与问责保健组织(accountability Care Organizations)相关的反垄断执法指南。该指南有三个重要的发展:1)如果ACO符合CMS参与SSP的资格标准，那么与商业健康计划进行联合价格谈判的ACO将受到“理性规则”的对待;2)治疗,控制了30%的市场份额在任何的“公共服务”将“安全地带”,盾牌保护ACO从反垄断的挑战,在没有特殊情况的前提下,3)美国联邦贸易委员会和司法部报废一个强制性的审查可能行使市场力的这些“可信赖医疗组织”,取而代之的是一个自愿的审查过程,可以帮助治疗,超出了安全地带,以更好地评估其提高反垄断问题的机会。如前所述，ACOs中相互竞争的供应商之间的合作引发了反垄断担忧，即供应商可能通过在商业市场上为其服务设定超竞争性价格来参与横向价格垄断或行使市场力量。横向价格垄断违反了《谢尔曼法》第一条。横向价格垄断指的是竞争对手就价格达成一致，允许竞争对手将价格提高到超竞争水平，并可能使自己免受竞争的影响。ACOs将相互竞争的提供者聚集在一起，共享信息并协调护理，以降低成本并提高护理质量。一个意想不到的结果可能是参与者供应商利用ACO结构与商业市场上的健康保险计划进行谈判，从而横向操纵价格。ACO参与者提供者从事反竞争行为的结果将是消费者支付更高的价格和更低的护理质量。因此，横向价格垄断不仅会破坏共享储蓄计划的目标，而且可能会加剧ACA试图解决的问题。这篇研究文章根据过去的政策，探讨了指导方针，重点是联邦贸易委员会和司法部的方法是否适当地平衡了激励提供者参与SSP的需要和防止医疗保健市场贸易限制的需要。首先，我们将了解医疗保健市场的动态以及构成美国反垄断法的法律体系。其次，我们将看看过去反托拉斯成文法是如何适用于医疗保健市场的。最后，我们将讨论反垄断政策的显著变化，因为它与ACA下的ACOs有关，以及这些变化是好是坏。
{"title":"Accountable Care Organizations: A Balancing Act","authors":"Jerry A. Johnson","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2457584","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2457584","url":null,"abstract":"In 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law by President Barack Obama. The ACA has three fundamental goals: (1) Increase access to health care; (2) Reduce the cost of health care; and (3) Improve the quality of health care. To reduce costs and improve quality, section 3022 of the ACA promotes the formation and operation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to treat Medicare beneficiaries in the new Medicare Shared Savings Program (SSP). ACOs are made up of competing health care providers collaborating to deliver efficient, coordinated care that meets quality performance and cost-saving standards that are determined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). ACOs may take many forms, “including networks of individual practices, partnerships, hospitals, [joint ventures] and other health care professionals.” The ACA hopes to encourage new innovative delivery models and does not place heavy restrictions on the form or type of entity sufficient to gain the status of ACO.“It is expected that most health care providers that form ACOs for Medicare beneficiaries will also seek to use the ACO structure for their commercially-insured patients.” In order to produce cost-saving efficiencies, ACOs will look to negotiate contracts between their participating providers, including price terms. ACOs negotiating with private payers raises antitrust concerns over possible price fixing and exercise of market power to restrain trade. ACO practices that restrain trade would undermine the ACA’s attempt to reduce costs and improve quality by further impairing the health care market and harming consumers/patients.In 2011, CMS published the final rule implementing section 3022 of the ACA which creates the Medicare Shared Savings Program and encourages the creation of ACOs. The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission are the two government agencies charged with enforcing antitrust law. The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice have recently published guidance laying out antitrust enforcement as it relates to Accountable Care Organizations.There are three significant developments that flow from the guidance: 1) ACOs engaged in joint price negotiations with commercial health plans will be treated under the “rule of reason” if the ACO meets CMS’ eligibility standards for SSP participation; 2) ACOs that control up to 30% of market shares in any of its “common services” will be protected by a “safety zone” which shields the ACO from antitrust challenge absent extraordinary circumstances and 3) the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice scrapped a mandatory review of ACOs that might wield market power and replaced it with a voluntary review process that can help ACOs that fall outside the safety zone to better assess its chances of raising antitrust concerns.As mentioned, collaboration between competing providers in ACOs raises antitrust concerns that providers may engage in ho","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"85 5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89343448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-06-18DOI: 10.7835/JCC-BERJ-2014-0094
Nikita Céspedes, Alan Sánchez
We study the effects of the minimum wage over employment and income in Peru by considering a monthly database that captures seven minimum wage changes registered between 2002 and 2011. We estimate that about 1 million workers earn an income by main occupation in the neighborhood of the minimum wage. Findings show that the minimum wage-income elasticity is statistically significant; the evidence also suggests that those who receive low incomes and those working in small businesses are the most affected by increases in the minimum wage. Employment effects are monotonically decreasing in absolute terms by firm size: they are moderate in large firms and higher in small firms. Results are robust when assessing the job-to-job transitions. Finally, we present evidence that supports the hypothesis that the minimum wage in Peru is correlated with income. The movement of income distribution in the context of changes in the minimum wage and the results provided by a model that captures the drivers of income justify this finding.
{"title":"Minimum Wage and Job Mobility in Peru","authors":"Nikita Céspedes, Alan Sánchez","doi":"10.7835/JCC-BERJ-2014-0094","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7835/JCC-BERJ-2014-0094","url":null,"abstract":"We study the effects of the minimum wage over employment and income in Peru by considering a monthly database that captures seven minimum wage changes registered between 2002 and 2011. We estimate that about 1 million workers earn an income by main occupation in the neighborhood of the minimum wage. Findings show that the minimum wage-income elasticity is statistically significant; the evidence also suggests that those who receive low incomes and those working in small businesses are the most affected by increases in the minimum wage. Employment effects are monotonically decreasing in absolute terms by firm size: they are moderate in large firms and higher in small firms. Results are robust when assessing the job-to-job transitions. Finally, we present evidence that supports the hypothesis that the minimum wage in Peru is correlated with income. The movement of income distribution in the context of changes in the minimum wage and the results provided by a model that captures the drivers of income justify this finding.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"51 4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91012414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The author’s introductory work, i.e., The Capitalism/Socialism Cycle – Phase II (we refer to the work as the “First Article”), heralds the introduction of a more efficient form of capitalism or Thin Capitalism (“TC”) , primed first by the Economic Recovery Tax Act (“ERTA”) of 1981 and the simple indexation of tax brackets, and then triggered with the Great Recession of 2007-2009 (“GR”), which began a de facto untangling of the symbiotic relationship that exists between American business and the Federal Government and the beginning of the end for Fat Capitalism (“FC”). In Implementing The Capitalism/Socialism Cycle – Phase II – Melting the Excessive Executive Compensation Employee Stock Option Icebergs, [we refer to this work as “Iceberg”] the author zeroes in on twelve irregularities of employee stock options or ESOs, the workhorse of FC as suggested in the First Article, the correction of which are a starting point in the conversion of FC to TC. This paper is the second installment in a trilogy that will conclude with a third paper that will offer remedies to our economic system against the backdrop of the social and cultural values of the American Experience. There is a suggestion then in this offering that there is an extraordinary amount of direct and indirect information about ESOs that is unseen and therefore virtually unknown across the multiple disciplines attendant to this critical form of stock-based compensation. It also introduces the question of how so much important information necessary for the efficient and effective functioning of this important financial instrument of capitalism could be so conveniently overlooked. It is overlooked, in large part, because it is in the best interests of those plying their trade to overlook them. Iceberg discusses twelve of its own, i.e., important ESO issues that are there but whose existence currently enjoys some type of artful or elusive status. Briefly, they are: 1. ESO taxation at grant – the U.S. Treasury vs. the Taxpayer; 2. Robinson v. U.S. [2003] – a major retrofit of Internal Revenue Code §83 (“IRC§83”); 3. Insider use of listed, exchange-traded options (“LETOs”); 4. SEC Release No. 34-60126 [June 17, 2009]; 5. The Transferable Stock Option or TSO; 6. Listed Exchange Traded Options and the Charitable Lead Trust; 7. Listed Exchange Traded Options and the Estate of the Corporate Executive; 8. The Incentive Stock Option Planning Dilemma – The Married Put; 9. Senator Levin – The Ending Excessive Corporate Deductions for Stock Options Act; 10. LETO Use in Financial Reporting – ASC 718, Compensation-Stock Compensation; 11. Emperor’s [Employer’s] Clothes-ESOs Don’t Work So Well; 12. An IRS-Approved Grant-Based Taxation Protocol for ESOs. In Iceberg, the author zeroes in on the above irregularities of ESOs as a starting point in the conversion of FC to TC. This conversion will take place in a two-part process, the first of which is a need to make current forms of equity compensation more efficie
{"title":"Implementing the Capitalism/Socialism Cycle – Phase II – Melting the Excessive Executive Compensation Employee Stock Option Icebergs","authors":"T. Wing","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2445386","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2445386","url":null,"abstract":"The author’s introductory work, i.e., The Capitalism/Socialism Cycle – Phase II (we refer to the work as the “First Article”), heralds the introduction of a more efficient form of capitalism or Thin Capitalism (“TC”) , primed first by the Economic Recovery Tax Act (“ERTA”) of 1981 and the simple indexation of tax brackets, and then triggered with the Great Recession of 2007-2009 (“GR”), which began a de facto untangling of the symbiotic relationship that exists between American business and the Federal Government and the beginning of the end for Fat Capitalism (“FC”). In Implementing The Capitalism/Socialism Cycle – Phase II – Melting the Excessive Executive Compensation Employee Stock Option Icebergs, [we refer to this work as “Iceberg”] the author zeroes in on twelve irregularities of employee stock options or ESOs, the workhorse of FC as suggested in the First Article, the correction of which are a starting point in the conversion of FC to TC. This paper is the second installment in a trilogy that will conclude with a third paper that will offer remedies to our economic system against the backdrop of the social and cultural values of the American Experience. There is a suggestion then in this offering that there is an extraordinary amount of direct and indirect information about ESOs that is unseen and therefore virtually unknown across the multiple disciplines attendant to this critical form of stock-based compensation. It also introduces the question of how so much important information necessary for the efficient and effective functioning of this important financial instrument of capitalism could be so conveniently overlooked. It is overlooked, in large part, because it is in the best interests of those plying their trade to overlook them. Iceberg discusses twelve of its own, i.e., important ESO issues that are there but whose existence currently enjoys some type of artful or elusive status. Briefly, they are: 1. ESO taxation at grant – the U.S. Treasury vs. the Taxpayer; 2. Robinson v. U.S. [2003] – a major retrofit of Internal Revenue Code §83 (“IRC§83”); 3. Insider use of listed, exchange-traded options (“LETOs”); 4. SEC Release No. 34-60126 [June 17, 2009]; 5. The Transferable Stock Option or TSO; 6. Listed Exchange Traded Options and the Charitable Lead Trust; 7. Listed Exchange Traded Options and the Estate of the Corporate Executive; 8. The Incentive Stock Option Planning Dilemma – The Married Put; 9. Senator Levin – The Ending Excessive Corporate Deductions for Stock Options Act; 10. LETO Use in Financial Reporting – ASC 718, Compensation-Stock Compensation; 11. Emperor’s [Employer’s] Clothes-ESOs Don’t Work So Well; 12. An IRS-Approved Grant-Based Taxation Protocol for ESOs. In Iceberg, the author zeroes in on the above irregularities of ESOs as a starting point in the conversion of FC to TC. This conversion will take place in a two-part process, the first of which is a need to make current forms of equity compensation more efficie","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81517200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Karen Stockley, T. Mcguire, Christopher C. Afendulis, M. Chernew
In the Medicare Advantage (MA) market, private health insurers compete to offer plans with the most attractive premium and benefit package. Medicare provides a subsidy, based on a "benchmark payment rate", for each Medicare beneficiary a plan enrolls. We investigate how this subsidy, the primary policy lever in the market, affects the equilibrium premiums and benefits of MA plans. We exploit variation in benchmark payment rates within plans over time, coming from rebasing years where benchmark changes differed across areas in ways that were plausibly exogenous, to determine empirically how plan premiums and benefit generosity respond to changes in benchmarks. We find that premiums do not respond to changes in the benchmark payment rate on average but that insurers do pass through a portion of the benchmark increase by increasing plan benefit generosity. We argue that the way premium information is communicated to consumers influences the way in which plans pass through subsidy dollars and can account for the empirical results. More specifically, institutional features make it difficult for consumers to observe a large component of the plan premium, leading to a lack of demand response to premium reductions below the premium charged by traditional Medicare (the fee-for-service Part B premium). When demand does not respond to lower premiums, plans have an incentive to pass-through cost subsidies to consumers via more generous benefits that consumers may not value at cost, creating an inefficiently high level of benefit generosity. Our results provide evidence that a lack of premium transparency in the MA market may distort the combination of premium levels and benefit generosity offered in equilibrium, resulting in some degree of inefficiently high benefits. We conclude by discussing changes to the choice environment that would increase premium transparency and potentially soften the premium rigidities we find.
{"title":"Premium Transparency in the Medicare Advantage Market: Implications for Premiums, Benefits, and Efficiency","authors":"Karen Stockley, T. Mcguire, Christopher C. Afendulis, M. Chernew","doi":"10.3386/W20208","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/W20208","url":null,"abstract":"In the Medicare Advantage (MA) market, private health insurers compete to offer plans with the most attractive premium and benefit package. Medicare provides a subsidy, based on a \"benchmark payment rate\", for each Medicare beneficiary a plan enrolls. We investigate how this subsidy, the primary policy lever in the market, affects the equilibrium premiums and benefits of MA plans. We exploit variation in benchmark payment rates within plans over time, coming from rebasing years where benchmark changes differed across areas in ways that were plausibly exogenous, to determine empirically how plan premiums and benefit generosity respond to changes in benchmarks. We find that premiums do not respond to changes in the benchmark payment rate on average but that insurers do pass through a portion of the benchmark increase by increasing plan benefit generosity. We argue that the way premium information is communicated to consumers influences the way in which plans pass through subsidy dollars and can account for the empirical results. More specifically, institutional features make it difficult for consumers to observe a large component of the plan premium, leading to a lack of demand response to premium reductions below the premium charged by traditional Medicare (the fee-for-service Part B premium). When demand does not respond to lower premiums, plans have an incentive to pass-through cost subsidies to consumers via more generous benefits that consumers may not value at cost, creating an inefficiently high level of benefit generosity. Our results provide evidence that a lack of premium transparency in the MA market may distort the combination of premium levels and benefit generosity offered in equilibrium, resulting in some degree of inefficiently high benefits. We conclude by discussing changes to the choice environment that would increase premium transparency and potentially soften the premium rigidities we find.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78619348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The inclusion of employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) in taxable income would increase income and payroll tax receipts, but would also increase Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) benefits by adding ESI to the OASDI earnings base. This study uses the Urban Institute’s DYNASIM model to estimate the effects of including ESI premiums in taxable earnings on the level and distribution by age and income groups of income tax burdens, payroll tax burdens, and OASDI benefits. We find that the increased present value of OASDI benefits from including ESI in the wage base in 2014 offsets about 22 percent of increased income and payroll taxes, 57 percent of increased payroll taxes, and 72 percent of increased OASDI taxes. The overall distributions of taxes and benefits by income group follow the same pattern, with both taxes and benefits increasing as a share of income between the bottom and middle quintiles and then declining as a share of income for higher income taxpayers. But households in the bottom income quintiles receive a net benefit from including ESI in the tax base because their increase in OASDI benefits exceeds their increase in income and payroll taxes. Over a lifetime perspective, all earnings groups experience net tax increases, but workers in the middle of the earnings distribution experience the largest net tax increases as a share of lifetime earnings. Higher benefits offset a larger share of tax increases for lower than for higher income groups.
{"title":"Adding Employer Contributions to Health Insurance to Social Security's Earnings and Tax Base","authors":"Karen E. Smith, E. Toder","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2428370","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2428370","url":null,"abstract":"The inclusion of employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) in taxable income would increase income and payroll tax receipts, but would also increase Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) benefits by adding ESI to the OASDI earnings base. This study uses the Urban Institute’s DYNASIM model to estimate the effects of including ESI premiums in taxable earnings on the level and distribution by age and income groups of income tax burdens, payroll tax burdens, and OASDI benefits. We find that the increased present value of OASDI benefits from including ESI in the wage base in 2014 offsets about 22 percent of increased income and payroll taxes, 57 percent of increased payroll taxes, and 72 percent of increased OASDI taxes. The overall distributions of taxes and benefits by income group follow the same pattern, with both taxes and benefits increasing as a share of income between the bottom and middle quintiles and then declining as a share of income for higher income taxpayers. But households in the bottom income quintiles receive a net benefit from including ESI in the tax base because their increase in OASDI benefits exceeds their increase in income and payroll taxes. Over a lifetime perspective, all earnings groups experience net tax increases, but workers in the middle of the earnings distribution experience the largest net tax increases as a share of lifetime earnings. Higher benefits offset a larger share of tax increases for lower than for higher income groups.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88171949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nicole Maestas, Kathleen J. Mullen, Alexander Strand
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 healthcare reform to estimate the potential effects of the ACA on SSDI and SSI applications.
{"title":"Disability Insurance and Healthcare Reform: Evidence from Massachusetts","authors":"Nicole Maestas, Kathleen J. Mullen, Alexander Strand","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2376453","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2376453","url":null,"abstract":"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 healthcare reform to estimate the potential effects of the ACA on SSDI and SSI applications.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84760571","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the traditional retirement scenario, individuals work full-time until a given age and then stop working abruptly. In the alternative partial retirement scenario, individuals work part-time for several years before they stop working. For the individual, partial retirement provides a smooth transition to full-retirement where they gradually adjust to a possibly lower income and more leisure time in full-retirement, and for the economy, it is a potential policy tool to keep people employed longer. The models developed to explain the retirement decisions of older workers are typically estimated using data on actual retirement behavior, from which it is difficult to identify the retirement options available to employees. In particular, employers often do not provide partial retirement opportunities. In this paper, we use stated preference data to identify the preferences of individuals for full and partial retirement plans. We consider a choice set of hypothetical full and partial retirement plans and ask the respondents of a survey representative for the US population of ages 40 and over to choose their favorite plan. We analyze how the choices vary with financial incentives and other factors.
{"title":"Stated Preference Analysis of Full and Partial Retirement in the United States","authors":"Tunga Kantarcı, A. van Soest","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2354646","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2354646","url":null,"abstract":"In the traditional retirement scenario, individuals work full-time until a given age and then stop working abruptly. In the alternative partial retirement scenario, individuals work part-time for several years before they stop working. For the individual, partial retirement provides a smooth transition to full-retirement where they gradually adjust to a possibly lower income and more leisure time in full-retirement, and for the economy, it is a potential policy tool to keep people employed longer. The models developed to explain the retirement decisions of older workers are typically estimated using data on actual retirement behavior, from which it is difficult to identify the retirement options available to employees. In particular, employers often do not provide partial retirement opportunities. In this paper, we use stated preference data to identify the preferences of individuals for full and partial retirement plans. We consider a choice set of hypothetical full and partial retirement plans and ask the respondents of a survey representative for the US population of ages 40 and over to choose their favorite plan. We analyze how the choices vary with financial incentives and other factors.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81795126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We study frictions in adjusting earnings in response to changes in the Social Security Annual Earnings Test (AET), using a panel of Social Security Administration microdata on one percent of the U.S. population from 1961 to 2006. Individuals continue to "bunch" at the convex kink the AET creates even when they are no longer subject to the AET, demonstrating that adjustment frictions help drive behavior in a new and important context. We develop a novel framework for estimating an earnings elasticity and an adjustment cost using information on the amount of bunching at kinks before and after policy changes in earnings incentives around the kinks. We apply this method in settings in which individuals face changes in the AET benefit reduction rate, and we estimate in a baseline case that the earnings elasticity with respect to the implicit net-of-tax share is 0.23, and the fixed cost of adjustment is $152.08. Our results demonstrate that the short-run impact of changes in the effective marginal tax rate can be substantially attenuated.
{"title":"Estimating Earnings Adjustment Frictions: Method and Evidence from the Social Security Earnings Test","authors":"Alexander M. Gelber, Damon Jones, Daniel W. Sacks","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2487382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2487382","url":null,"abstract":"We study frictions in adjusting earnings in response to changes in the Social Security Annual Earnings Test (AET), using a panel of Social Security Administration microdata on one percent of the U.S. population from 1961 to 2006. Individuals continue to \"bunch\" at the convex kink the AET creates even when they are no longer subject to the AET, demonstrating that adjustment frictions help drive behavior in a new and important context. We develop a novel framework for estimating an earnings elasticity and an adjustment cost using information on the amount of bunching at kinks before and after policy changes in earnings incentives around the kinks. We apply this method in settings in which individuals face changes in the AET benefit reduction rate, and we estimate in a baseline case that the earnings elasticity with respect to the implicit net-of-tax share is 0.23, and the fixed cost of adjustment is $152.08. Our results demonstrate that the short-run impact of changes in the effective marginal tax rate can be substantially attenuated.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89212432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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