Social and Behavioral Sciences | Open Access Articles

Do Medical Marijuana Laws Reduce Addictions And Deaths Related To Pain Killers?, David Powell, Rosalie Pacula, Mireille Jacobson

David Powell

Recent work finds that medical marijuana laws reduce the daily doses filled for opioid analgesics among Medicare Part-D and Medicaid enrollees, as well as population-wide opioid overdose deaths. We replicate the result for opioid overdose deaths and explore the potential mechanism. The key feature of a medical marijuana law that facilitates a reduction in overdose death rates is a relatively liberal allowance for dispensaries. As states have become more stringent in their regulation of dispensaries, the protective value generally has fallen. These findings suggest that broader access to medical marijuana facilitates substitution of marijuana for powerful and addictive opioids.

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Optimal Health Insurance And The Distortionary Effects Of The Tax Subsidy, David Powell

David Powell

The tax exclusion of health insurance premiums represents the largest source of tax expenditures in the United States while reducing the after-tax price of insurance for the majority of households. This paper develops a model of optimal health insurance in the presence of a tax-deductible premium as well as considering the implications of the Affordable Care Act's ``Cadillac tax." While there is a long literature discussing the possible consequences of subsidizing health insurance through the tax code, we have little evidence about how the tax subsidy distorts the optimal cost-sharing schedule for a household. This paper provides theoretical and empirical …

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Disentangling Moral Hazard And Adverse Selection In Private Health Insurance, David Powell, Dana Goldman

David Powell

Moral hazard and adverse selection create inefficiencies in private health insurance markets and understanding the relative importance of each factor is critical for policy. We use claims data from a large firm which changed health insurance plan options to isolate moral hazard from plan selection. Using an instrumental variables quantile regression approach, we estimate the differential causal impact of each health insurance plan on the entire distribution of medical expenditures. We account for systematic sample attrition during the sample period by conditioning on a nonseparable sample selection adjustment. Our estimates imply that 54% of the additional medical spending …

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Medical Care Spending And Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence From Workers' Compensation Reforms, David Powell, Seth Seabury

David Powell

This paper studies the effectiveness of medical care spending on improving labor outcomes. Injuries sustained at work represent large income and welfare losses to households and there is a significant policy interest in reducing these burdens. Workers' compensation program is a large government program which provides monetary and medical benefits to injured workers. Despite the potential importance of medical care in improving the health and labor productivity of injured workers, little research has addressed the relationship between medical care provided through workers' compensation and post-injury labor outcomes. This paper exploits the 2003-2004 California workers' compensation reforms which reduced medical care …

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Do Medical Marijuana Laws Reduce Addictions And Deaths Related To Pain Killers?, David Powell, Rosalie Pacula, Mireille Jacobson

David Powell

Optimal Health Insurance And The Distortionary Effects Of The Tax Subsidy, David Powell

David Powell

Disentangling Moral Hazard And Adverse Selection In Private Health Insurance, David Powell, Dana Goldman

David Powell

Medical Care Spending And Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence From Workers' Compensation Reforms, David Powell, Seth Seabury

David Powell