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Author: Bundorf, M. Kate
Resulting in 2 citations.
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Battacharya, Jay Bundorf, M. Kate |
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The Incidence of the Healthcare Costs of Obesity NBER Working Paper No. 11303, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2005. Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11303 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Body Mass Index (BMI); Insurance, Health; Obesity; Weight The incidence of obesity has increased dramatically in the U.S. Obese individuals tend to be sicker and spend more on health care, raising the question of who bears the incidence of obesity-related health care costs. This question is particularly interesting among those with group coverage through an employer given the lack of explicit risk adjustment of individual health insurance premiums in the group market. In this paper, we examine the incidence of the healthcare costs of obesity among full time workers. We find that the incremental healthcare costs associated with obesity are passed on to obese workers with employer-sponsored health insurance in the form of lower cash wages. Obese workers in firms without employer-sponsored insurance do not have a wage offset relative to their non-obese counterparts. Our estimate of the wage offset exceeds estimates of the expected incremental health care costs of these individuals for obese women, but not for men. We find that a substantial part of the lower wages among obese women attributed to labor market discrimination can be explained by the higher health insurance premiums required to cover them. |
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Bibliography Citation
Battacharya, Jay and M. Kate Bundorf. "The Incidence of the Healthcare Costs of Obesity." NBER Working Paper No. 11303, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2005. |
| 2. |
Bhattacharya, Jay Bundorf, M. Kate |
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The Incidence of the Healthcare Costs of Obesity Journal of Health Economics 28,3 (May 2009): 649-658. Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629609000113 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: Elsevier Keyword(s): Discrimination, Employer; Discrimination, Sex; Gender Differences; Health Care; Insurance, Health; Obesity; Wage Levels Who pays the healthcare costs associated with obesity? Among workers, this is largely a question of the incidence of the costs of employer-sponsored coverage. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, we find that the incremental healthcare costs associated with obesity are passed on to obese workers with employer-sponsored health insurance in the form of lower cash wages. Obese workers without employer-sponsored insurance do not have a wage offset relative to their non-obese counterparts. A substantial part of the lower wages among obese women attributed to labor market discrimination can be explained by their higher health insurance premiums. [Copyright 2009 Elsevier] Copyright of Journal of Health Economics is the property of Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) |
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Bibliography Citation
Bhattacharya, Jay and M. Kate Bundorf. "The Incidence of the Healthcare Costs of Obesity." Journal of Health Economics 28,3 (May 2009): 649-658.
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