scholarly journals ADVERSE SELECTION IN HEALTH INSURANCE IN NIGERIA

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 01-09
Author(s):  
Saheed Olawale Olayiwola ◽  
Olanrewaju Ademola Olaniyan
2021 ◽  
Vol 111 (5) ◽  
pp. 1549-1574
Author(s):  
Richard Domurat ◽  
Isaac Menashe ◽  
Wesley Yin

We experimentally varied information mailed to 87,000 households in California’s health insurance marketplace to study the role of frictions in insurance take-up. Reminders about the enrollment deadline raised enrollment by 1.3 pp (16 percent) in this typically low take-up population. Heterogeneous effects of personalized subsidy information indicate misperceptions about program benefits. Consistent with an adverse selection model with frictional enrollment costs, the intervention lowered average spending risk by 5.1 percent, implying that marginal respondents were 37 percent less costly than inframarginal consumers. We observe the largest positive selection among low income consumers, who exhibit the largest frictions in enrollment. Finally, we estimate the implied value of the letter intervention to be $25 to $53 per month in subsidy dollars. These results suggest that frictions may partially explain low take-up for marketplace insurance, and that interventions reducing them can improve enrollment and market risk in exchanges. (JEL C93, G22, G52, H75, I13)


Author(s):  
Philippe Lambert ◽  
Sergio Perelman ◽  
Pierre Pestieau ◽  
Jérôme Schoenmaeckers

2002 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R G Butler

From the introduction of Australia's national health insurance scheme (Medicare) in 1984 until recently, the proportion of the population covered by private health insurance declined steadily. Following an Industry Commission inquiry into the private health insurance industry in 1997,a number of policy changes were effected in an attempt to reverse this trend. The main policy changes were of two types: "carrots and sticks" financial incentives that provided subsidies for purchasing, or tax penalties for not purchasing, private health insurance; and lifetime community rating, which aimed to revise the community rating regulations governing private health insurance in Australia. This paper argues that the membership uptake that has occurred recently is largely attributable to the introduction of lifetime community rating which goes some way towards addressing the adverse selection associated with the previous community rating regulations. This policy change had virtually no cost to government. However, it was introduced after subsidies for private health insurance were already in place. The chronological sequencing of these policies has resulted in substantial increases in government expenditure on private health insurance subsidies, with such increases not being a cause but rather an effect of increased demand for private health insurance.The paper also considers whether the decline in membership that has occurred since the implementation of lifetime community rating presages the re-emergence of an adverse selection problem in private health insurance. Much of the decline to date may be attributable to failure on the part of some members to honour premium payments when they first fell due. However, the changing age composition of the insured pool since September 2000,resulting in an increasing average age of those insured, suggests the possible reappearance of an adverse selection dynamic. Thus the 'trick' delivered by lifetime community rating may not be maintained in the longer term.


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