A tax on work for the elderly
Subtitle: medicare as a secondary payer
By: Gopi Shah Goda, John B. Shoven, Sita Nataraj Slavov.
Contributors: Shoven, John B.; Slavov, Sita N.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- no. 13383.; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 13383.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 23
Subjects: Insurance, Health -- Law and legislation -- United States; Medicare -- Law and legislation
Description: "Medicare as a Secondary Payer (MSP) legislation requires employer-sponsored health insurance to be a primary payer for Medicare-eligible workers at firms with 20 or more employees.  While the legislation was developed to better target Medicare services to individuals without access to employer-sponsored insurance, MSP creates a significant implicit tax on working beyond age 65.  This implicit tax is approximately 15-20 percent at age 65 and increases to 45-70 percent by age 80.  Eliminating this implicit tax by making Medicare a primary payer for all Medicare-eligible individuals could significantly increase lifetime labor supply due to the high labor supply elasticities of older workers.  The extra income tax receipts from such a policy would likely offset a large percentage of the estimated costs of making Medicare a primary payer"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: "September 2007"

Includes bibliographical references (p. 22-23).

Also available in PDF from the NBER World Wide Web site (www.nber.org).