<mods:mods xmlns:mods="http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-8.xsd">
  <mods:titleInfo>
    <mods:title>Who Pays for Health Care Costs? The Effects of Health Care Prices on Wages</mods:title>
  </mods:titleInfo>
  <mods:typeOfResource authority="primo">articles</mods:typeOfResource>
  <mods:abstract>Over 150 million Americans receive health insurance benefits from an employer as a&#13;
form of compensation. In recent years, health care costs have grown rapidly, raising&#13;
concerns that increased health care spending crowds out wage increases. We leverage hospital mergers to test the impact of health care prices on wages and benefit design. We find that within-market hospital mergers over the 2012-2022 period led&#13;
to a $985 increase in health care spending per worker plan and a $991 reduction in&#13;
wages among workers with employer-sponsored health insurance, implying near complete pass-through from health care spending to wages. We also find evidence that hospital mergers increase per enrollee deductible and cost-sharing payments, though&#13;
out-of-pocket spending as a percentage of total health care spending does not change.&#13;
Our results imply that Americans feel the effects of rising health care costs via two&#13;
channels: higher out-of-pocket spending and lower wages.</mods:abstract>
  <mods:name>
    <mods:namePart>Daniel R. Arnold</mods:namePart>
    <mods:role>
      <mods:roleTerm authority="marcrelator" authorityURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators" valueURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut">Author</mods:roleTerm>
    </mods:role>
  </mods:name>
  <mods:name>
    <mods:namePart>Christopher M. Whaley</mods:namePart>
    <mods:role>
      <mods:roleTerm authority="marcrelator" authorityURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators" valueURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut">Author</mods:roleTerm>
    </mods:role>
  </mods:name>
  <mods:originInfo>
    <mods:dateCreated>2025</mods:dateCreated>
  </mods:originInfo>
  <mods:subject authority="local">
    <mods:topic>Health Care Prices</mods:topic>
  </mods:subject>
  <mods:subject authority="local">
    <mods:topic>Wages</mods:topic>
  </mods:subject>
  <mods:subject authority="local">
    <mods:topic>Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance</mods:topic>
  </mods:subject>
  <mods:genre>Working Paper</mods:genre>

<mods:identifier type="doi">10.2139/ssrn.4959256</mods:identifier>


  <mods:accessCondition type="use and reproduction">All rights reserved</mods:accessCondition>
  <mods:accessCondition type="rights statement" xlink:href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</mods:accessCondition>
  <mods:accessCondition type="restriction on access">All Rights Reserved</mods:accessCondition>
</mods:mods>