In the latest issue of Cato Journal, I review Casey Mulligan’s book, Side Effects and Complications: The Economic Consequences of Health-Care Reform.
Some ACA supporters claim that, aside from a reduction in the number of uninsured, there is no evidence the ACA is having the effects Mulligan predicts. The responsible ones note that it is difficult to isolate the ACA’s effects, given that it was enacted at the nadir of the Great Recession, that anticipation and implementation of its provisions coincided with the recovery, and that administrative and congressional action have delayed implementation of many of its taxes on labor (the employer mandate, the Cadillac tax). There is ample evidence that, at least beneath the aggregate figures, employers and workers are responding to the ACA’s implicit taxes on labor…
Side Effects and Complications brings transparency to a law whose authors designed it to be opaque.