Bunching at the Kink: Implications for Spending Responses to Health Insurance Contracts

Uncertainty and health insurance

10.1093/oso/9780198794837.003.0010 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Jan Abel Olsen

Keyword(s):

Health Insurance ◽

Excess Demand ◽

Financial Protection ◽

Insurance Plan ◽

Welfare Gain ◽

Health Insurance Plan ◽

Insurance Contracts ◽

Efficiency Losses ◽

Potential Efficiency

This chapter seeks to explain why most people prefer to have a health insurance plan. Two types of uncertainty give rise to the demand for financial protection: people do not know if they will ever come to need healthcare, and they do not know the full financial implications of illness. Health insurance would take away—or at least reduce—such financial uncertainties associated with future illnesses. A model is presented to show the so-called welfare gain from health insurance. This is followed by an investigation into the potential efficiency losses of health insurance, due to excess demand for services. In the last section, a different efficiency problem is discussed: when people have an incentive to signal ‘false risks’, this can lead to there being no market for insurance contracts which reflect ‘true risks’.

Information Costs and Health Insurance Contracts

Journal of Risk & Insurance ◽

10.2307/253773 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 67 (2) ◽

pp. 235 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Chu-Shiu Li

Keyword(s):

Health Insurance ◽

Information Costs ◽

Insurance Contracts

Sex, Lies, and Health Insurance: Employer-Provided Health Insurance Coverage of Abortion and Infertility Services and the ADA

American Journal of Law & Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0098858800010297 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

pp. 51-84

Author(s):

D'Andra Millsap

Keyword(s):

Health Insurance ◽

Private Health Insurance ◽

Insurance Coverage ◽

Health Insurance Coverage ◽

The United States ◽

Infertility Treatment ◽

Insurance Contracts ◽

Access To Health ◽

Infertility Treatments ◽

Infertile Couples

Employer-provided health insurance is the backbone of the American healthcare system. Approximately four of five workers in the United States rely on health insurance provided in the workplace. Many commentators view access to health insurance as the doorway to the entire health care system. Thus, the benefits covered in employer-provided health insurance plans significantly impact millions of Americans.While private health insurance usually covers abortion, it traditionally has not covered infertility services. Eventually, courts began interpreting insurance contracts to include infertility treatments, leading insurers to specifically exclude infertility treatments from coverage. In response, a few states have passed mandated benefit laws requiring coverage of some or all infertility services. Nonetheless, current insurance coverage of infertility services is “erratic” at best. These exclusions are significant because abortion and infertility services can be quite expensive for the millions of infertile couples seeking some sort of infertility treatment and the millions of women who have abortions each year.

Risk-Adjustment in Long-Term Health Insurance Contracts in Germany

The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Issues and Practice ◽

10.1057/palgrave.gpp.2510097 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 31 (4) ◽

pp. 692-704 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Johann Eekhoff ◽

Markus Jankowski ◽

Anne Zimmermann

Keyword(s):

Health Insurance ◽

Risk Adjustment ◽

Insurance Contracts