How much does health insurance cost? Comparison of premiums in administrative and survey data

Abstract

Using newly available administrative data from the Internal Revenue Service, this paper studies the distribution of employer-sponsored health insurance premiums. Previous estimates, in contrast, were almost exclusively from household surveys. After correcting for coverage limitations of the IRS data, we find that average premiums for employer-sponsored plans are roughly $1000 higher in IRS records than in the Current Population Survey. The downward bias in the CPS is largely driven by underestimating of premiums among married workers and topcoding of high premiums. _____________________________________________________________________________The results and opinions expressed in this paper reflect the views of the authors and should not be attributed to the Federal Reserve Board.

Evaluating the Success of President Johnson's War on Poverty: Revisiting the Historical Record Using a Full-Income Poverty Measure

“…Larrimore and Splinter (2019) also find an undervaluation of employer provided health insurance in the CPS-ASEC, although this concern is less important for poverty measurement.…”