Employment and Adverse Selection in Health Insurance

Employment and Adverse Selection in Health Insurance PDF Author: Jay Bhattacharya
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Employer-sponsored health insurance
Languages : en
Pages : 28

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Book Description
We construct and test a new model of employer-provided health insurance provision in the presence of adverse selection in the health insurance market. In our model, employers cannot observe the health of their employees, but can decide whether to offer insurance. Employees sort themselves among employers who do and do not offer insurance on the basis of their current health status and the probability distribution over future health status changes. We show that there exists a pooling equilibrium in which both sick and healthy employees are covered as long as the costs of job switching are higher than the persistence of health status. We test and verify some of the key implications of our model using data from the Current Population Survey, linked to information provided by the U.S. Department of Labor about the job-specific human capital requirements of jobs.

Employment and Adverse Selection in Health Insurance

Employment and Adverse Selection in Health Insurance PDF Author: Jay Bhattacharya
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Employer-sponsored health insurance
Languages : en
Pages : 28

Get Book Here

Book Description
We construct and test a new model of employer-provided health insurance provision in the presence of adverse selection in the health insurance market. In our model, employers cannot observe the health of their employees, but can decide whether to offer insurance. Employees sort themselves among employers who do and do not offer insurance on the basis of their current health status and the probability distribution over future health status changes. We show that there exists a pooling equilibrium in which both sick and healthy employees are covered as long as the costs of job switching are higher than the persistence of health status. We test and verify some of the key implications of our model using data from the Current Population Survey, linked to information provided by the U.S. Department of Labor about the job-specific human capital requirements of jobs.

Adverse Selection in Health Insurance

Adverse Selection in Health Insurance PDF Author: David M. Cutler
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Health insurance
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Book Description
Individual choice over health insurance policies may result in risk-based sorting across plans. Such adverse selection induces three types of losses: efficiency losses from individuals being allocated to the wrong plans; risk sharing losses since premium variability is increased; and losses from insurers distorting their policies to improve their mix of insureds. We discuss the potential for these losses, and present empirical evidence on adverse selection in two groups of employees: Harvard University, and the Group Insurance Commission of Massachusetts (serving state and local employees). In both groups, adverse selection is a significant concern. At Harvard, the University's decision to contribute an equal amount to all insurance plans led to the disappearance of the most generous policy within 3 years. At the GIC, adverse selection has been contained by subsidizing premiums on a proportional basis and managing the most generous policy very tightly. A combination of prospective or retrospective risk adjustment, coupled with reinsurance for high cost cases, seems promising as a way to provide appropriate incentives for enrollees and to reduce losses from adverse selection.

Employment and Health Benefits

Employment and Health Benefits PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309048273
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
The United States is unique among economically advanced nations in its reliance on employers to provide health benefits voluntarily for workers and their families. Although it is well known that this system fails to reach millions of these individuals as well as others who have no connection to the work place, the system has other weaknesses. It also has many advantages. Because most proposals for health care reform assume some continued role for employers, this book makes an important contribution by describing the strength and limitations of the current system of employment-based health benefits. It provides the data and analysis needed to understand the historical, social, and economic dynamics that have shaped present-day arrangements and outlines what might be done to overcome some of the access, value, and equity problems associated with current employer, insurer, and government policies and practices. Health insurance terminology is often perplexing, and this volume defines essential concepts clearly and carefully. Using an array of primary sources, it provides a store of information on who is covered for what services at what costs, on how programs vary by employer size and industry, and on what governments doâ€"and do not doâ€"to oversee employment-based health programs. A case study adapted from real organizations' experiences illustrates some of the practical challenges in designing, managing, and revising benefit programs. The sometimes unintended and unwanted consequences of employer practices for workers and health care providers are explored. Understanding the concepts of risk, biased risk selection, and risk segmentation is fundamental to sound health care reform. This volume thoroughly examines these key concepts and how they complicate efforts to achieve efficiency and equity in health coverage and health care. With health care reform at the forefront of public attention, this volume will be important to policymakers and regulators, employee benefit managers and other executives, trade associations, and decisionmakers in the health insurance industry, as well as analysts, researchers, and students of health policy.

How Adverse Selection Affects the Health Insurance Market

How Adverse Selection Affects the Health Insurance Market PDF Author: Paolo Belli
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN:
Category : Adverse selection (Insurance)
Languages : en
Pages : 38

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Book Description
There may be a price to pay (in terms of inefficient coverage) if competition among health insurers is encouraged as a way to give patients greater choice and to achieve better control over insurance providers.

Health Benefits at Work

Health Benefits at Work PDF Author: Mark V. Pauly
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472086443
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Who really pays for health benefits? An accessible explanation of the economic theory behind this question

"Expanding Consumer Choice and Addressing 'adverse Selection' Concerns in Health Insurance"

Author: United States. Congress. Joint Economic Committee
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Adverse selection (Insurance)
Languages : en
Pages : 62

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Book Description


The Health and Wealth of a Nation: Employer-Based Health Insurance and the Affordable Care Act

The Health and Wealth of a Nation: Employer-Based Health Insurance and the Affordable Care Act PDF Author: Nan L. Maxwell
Publisher: W.E. Upjohn Institute
ISBN: 0880994266
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
And Discussion4: How Large Firms Might Respond to the ACA; The ACA and Increasing Costs; Large Firms' Behavior as a Response to Increasing Costs; Past Behavior and Potential Increased Health Care Costs; Summary and Discussion; 5: How Small Firms Might Respond to the ACA; The ACA and Small Firms; Small Firms That Did Not Offer ESI; Small Firms That Offered ESI; Summary and Discussion; 6: Health Policy and Firm Behavior; Analyzing Incentives for Firms to Offer ESI; Firms' Prereform Behavior; Three Characteristics of Employer-Sponsored Insurance in the Prereform Period

Frontiers in Health Policy Research

Frontiers in Health Policy Research PDF Author: David M. Cutler
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262532662
Category : Medical care
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
Leading economists discuss current health policy challenges, including prescription drugs benefits as a component of Medicare and conversion to for-profit health plans.

Expanding Employment-based Health Coverage

Expanding Employment-based Health Coverage PDF Author: Sharon Silow-Carroll
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Employer-sponsored health insurance
Languages : en
Pages : 66

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Book Description


Moral Hazard in Health Insurance

Moral Hazard in Health Insurance PDF Author: Amy Finkelstein
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538685
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
Addressing the challenge of covering heath care expenses—while minimizing economic risks. Moral hazard—the tendency to change behavior when the cost of that behavior will be borne by others—is a particularly tricky question when considering health care. Kenneth J. Arrow’s seminal 1963 paper on this topic (included in this volume) was one of the first to explore the implication of moral hazard for health care, and Amy Finkelstein—recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on the topic—here examines this issue in the context of contemporary American health care policy. Drawing on research from both the original RAND Health Insurance Experiment and her own research, including a 2008 Health Insurance Experiment in Oregon, Finkelstein presents compelling evidence that health insurance does indeed affect medical spending and encourages policy solutions that acknowledge and account for this. The volume also features commentaries and insights from other renowned economists, including an introduction by Joseph P. Newhouse that provides context for the discussion, a commentary from Jonathan Gruber that considers provider-side moral hazard, and reflections from Joseph E. Stiglitz and Kenneth J. Arrow. “Reads like a fireside chat among a group of distinguished, articulate health economists.” —Choice