Title: The effect of tax preferences on health spending
First published: 2008
Description: "In this paper, we estimate the effect of the tax preference for insurance on health spending based on the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys from 1996-2005.  We use the fact that Social Security taxes are only levied on earnings below a statutory threshold to identify the tax preference's impact.  Because employer-sponsored health insurance premiums are excluded from Social Security payroll taxes, workers who earn just below the Social Security tax threshold receive a larger tax preference for health insurance than workers who earn just above it.  We find a significant effect of the tax preference, consistent with previous research"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
LC classification: HB1