Health Insurance in an Experimental Market

Using real world data is fraught with complexity.  Wouldn’t it be nice to randomly change government regulations and see how people react?  A paper by Stephen Rassenti and Carl Johnston use a laboratory experiment to do just that. In the experiment, survey participants are in charge of running a firm.  The firm must decide if it will provide…

Can Health Care Reform Save the Economy?

In the run-up of real estate and stock market prices, demand for labor in the construction, real estate, finance industry was high.  With the drastic drop in real estate and stock market prices, the demand for loan officers, construction workers and investment bankers has dropped.  Individuals who have been laid must find a new job.…

Is MediGap efficiently priced?

In 2004, 29% of Medicare enrollees had Medigap coverage.  Are these policies priced efficiently? An NBER paper by Maestas, Schroeder and Goldman (2009) argues that the answer is no.   Prior to July 1992, Medigap was minimally regulated.  With the passage of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 (implemented in July 1992), Medigap plans…

California Health Care Market

In her California Healthcare Foundation report, Katherine Wilson does a nice job describing the health insurance market in California.  A little over health of individuals received health care from their employer or themselves (56%), a quarter of individuals receive health insurance through public programs, and 19% of Californians are uninsured (see chart).  The private health…

Value-Based Cost Sharing

Many policy experts have been proponents of value-based cost sharing.  Under value-based cost sharing, medical care that is seen to provide a higher marginal benefit to the patient will have lower coinsurance rates than medical care with lower marginal benefits.  If value-based cost sharing would be implemented, preventive care should have low coinsurance rates because…