Arianrhod
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- Jul 24, 2015
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Obamacare not spurring more early retirements yet despite predictions
A team of University of Michigan researchers studied Census Bureau employment data for 2014 - the first full year of the law’s implementation - and found no evidence of a higher rate of retirement, or a shift to part-time work, for Americans age 55 to 64.
“We looked for it. In fact we really looked hard for it,” said Helen Levy, a research associate professor at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. “This just hasn’t been the labor supply Armageddon some were predicting.”
Still, the ACA has had an enormous, positive impact on older Americans.
At the end of the ACA’s first full year, the share of Americans ages 50 to 64 without health insurance had fallen by nearly a third, to just 8 percent, according to research by the Urban Institute and AARP. The uninsured rate was even lower in the 27 states that chose to expand Medicaid eligibility - just 5.5 percent at the end of last year.
It is too early to document improved health, but Levy and other experts think the higher coverage rates will mean healthier seniors in the years ahead.
“For these folks, health insurance really matters,” Levy said. “They’re the ones who tend to get sick, and they have a nest egg to protect. It really is a matter of life and death."