Texas is the only state that does not mandate that employers carry workers’ compensation (WC) insurance coverage. In place of traditional WC, companies can choose to offer alternative “non-subscription” disability plans to workers. Little large-scale empirical research has studied the consequences of switching from traditional WC to non-subscription plans. We use a difference-in-differences estimator along with a novel machine learning approach to compare effects of switching to non-subscription plans for employees in Texas versus contemporaneously measured non-Texas-based employees for 25 large companies. Our results indicate that total medical payments dropped by roughly 40% from switching to non-subscription plans, consisting of reductions in hospital spending, physician spending, and other medical spending. Similarly, indemnity payments dropped by 70% and number of reported lost days dropped by 80%. Accumulating all sources of spending, we find that total expense associated with workplace injury fell by approximately 46% after switching to the non-subscription program.

中文翻译：

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退出工人的补偿：德克萨斯州的非订阅及其影响

德克萨斯州是唯一不强制要求雇主提供工人赔偿（WC）保险的州。代替传统的WC，公司可以选择向工人提供替代性的“非订阅”残疾计划。很少有大规模的实证研究研究从传统WC转向非订阅计划的后果。我们使用差异差异估算器和新颖的机器学习方法，比较了德克萨斯州员工与同时衡量的25家大公司非德克萨斯州员工转换为非订阅计划的效果。我们的结果表明，从转用非订阅计划后，总医疗费用下降了约40％，其中包括医院支出，医师支出和其他医疗支出的减少。同样，赔偿金下降了70％，报告的损失工作日数下降了80％。汇总所有支出来源，我们发现在转用非订阅计划后，与工作场所伤害相关的总费用下降了约46％。