Bridget Madrian argued in 1994 that the link between EPHI and labor market mobility was an important factor in evaluating several proposals to reform the US health care system.
A 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey (NMES) that sampled married men in the United States aged 20–55 found job mobility rates were 30–31% lower among those with employment-provided health insurance coverage, compared with those without it.
An NMES literature review in the same year found that studies typically reported a 20–40% reduction in mobility rates due to employment-related health insurance.
A Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) (1985, 1986, 1987) found that state and federal policy to mandate continuation of coverage increased the job mobility of prime-age male workers.
[8] When attempting to estimate how frequently job lock occurs, one must control for outside factors that may influence a worker's decision other than the risk of losing health care.
Workers are discouraged from switching to jobs where they are more efficient producers, and this immobility of labor resources leads to a lower level of overall productivity and national income.
[1] The second implication is that the high risk consumers are more likely to face job lock for fear of losing coverage for their routine medical expenditures (they know their expected value of health bills).