Effect of ACA Medicaid Expansions on Labor Supply

The Congressional Budget Office among others has forecast that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will decrease work effort because of the subsidies for health insurance that depend on income and therefore work effort. One of the primary subsidies of insurance in the ACA was the MEdicaid expansions. We study the effec to fthese expansions on health insurance coverage and labor supply of low-educated persons. We sue two data sets: American Community Survey and Current Populaiton Survey and examine the period from 2010 to 2015. The research design is a difference-in-differnece approach and results from an event study specification analysis provides substantial evidence to support the "parrallel" trends assumptiona and the validity of this approach.  We find that the ACA MEdicaid expansions significantly increased Medicaid coverage, decreased the proportion of persons uninsured and had little effect on private coverage. The change sin insurance ocverage had no adverse effects on employment, hours of work or weeks worked. If anyything, the ACA Meidcaid expansions were associated with an increase in employment among those with the greatest gains in insurance--unmarried persons with less than a high school degree.