Policy-makers need to know how employers will respond to tax credit proposals or public coverage expansions and what drives these decisions. An employer’s decision to drop coverage or change employee contributions will affect all workers, not just those with access to new coverage options.

The question of who bears the cost of health insurance is also a critical issue for policy- makers examining employer responses to coverage proposals. If workers always bore health insurance costs in the form of reduced wages, an employer’s decision to drop coverage might not be very problematic. But if we find that employers do bear some of the cost of coverage or that costs are spread among workers, employers’ decisions to drop coverage would leave workers worse off.

Finally, policy-makers need to understand how modelers predict employer responses to new coverage policies, which are among the strongest drivers of model results. Changing assumptions about employer behavior can fundamentally shift predictions of coverage policy results.