The Impact of the Affordable Care Act on the Retail Employees in the Southern United States

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2015 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 4.00, , course: Business Administration: Doctoral studies, language: English, abstract: President Barrack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law in March 2010, to expand health coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. Coverage to the low-income Americans through federal subsidies is feasible because majority of Americans get health coverage through the Employer-Sponsored Insurance (ESI). If the employees already enrolled with the ESI migrate to the ACA marketplace and avail premium subsidies just as the individuals, who have no access to the ESI, the viability of the ESI will be questionable and the ACA will fail to achieve the goal. The researcher conducted a survey of 203 front-line retail executives in the Southern United States to see if and to what degree migration of the retail employees would occur in the Southern United States. The current study sample data did not support migration of the employees from the ESI to the ACA marketplace. In the current study, Age, Ethnicity, and annual household income of the employees are somewhat likely to influence the decision of the employees to migrate from the ESI to the ACA marketplace. None of the variables were however a factor in overall modeling of relationship among the variables. Majority of the employees in the present research study continue to value the employment-based health coverage and do not have however a clear understanding of the act.