Economic Effects of the March Health Legislation
Douglas W. Elmendorf, Director, presentation at the University of Southern California, October 22, 2010.
"The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act:
–Expansion of insurance coverage.
–Changes in Medicare.
–Revenue increases.

■The economic effects of the legislation can be divided into two pieces:
–The effects on the five-sixths of the economy outside the health sector.
–The effects on the health sector itself.

The most significant effects will be through the labor market—but those effects will probably be small.

■The legislation will affect some individuals’ decisions about whether and how much to work, and some employers’ decisions about hiring workers. We estimated that the legislation, on net, will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by roughly half a percent, primarily by reducing the amount of labor that workers choose to supply..."