This paper investigates consumer switching costs in the context of health insurance markets, where adverse selection is a potential concern. Though previous work has studied these phenomena in isolation, they interact in a way that directly impacts market outcomes and consumer welfare. Our...

The steady state general equilibrium and welfare consequences of health insurance reform are evaluated in a calibrated life-cycle economy with incomplete markets and endogenous labor supply. Individuals face uncertainty each period about their future health status, medical expenditures, labor...

Moral hazard and adverse selection create inefficiencies in private health insurance markets and understanding the relative importance of each factor is critical for policy. We use claims data from a large firm to isolate moral hazard from plan selection. Previous studies have attempted to...

We study the Medicare Part D prescription drug insurance program as a bellwether for designs of private, non-mandatory health insurance markets that control adverse selection and assure adequate access and coverage. We model Part D enrollment and plan choice assuming a discrete dynamic decision...

Despite the popularity of pay-for-performance (P4P) among health policymakers and private insurers as a tool for improving quality of care, there is little empirical basis for its effectiveness. We use data from published performance reports of physician medical groups contracting with a large...

Prices in government and employer-sponsored health insurance markets only partially reflect insurers' expected costs of coverage for different enrollees. This can create inefficient distortions when consumers self-select into plans. We develop a simple model to study this problem and estimate it...

We use a combination of administrative and survey data to estimate the fraction of individuals newly enrolled in public health coverage (Wisconsin's combined Medicaid and CHIP program) that had access to private, employer-sponsored health insurance at the time of their enrollment and the...

This paper investigates a possible predictor of adverse selection problems in unsubsidized stand-alone' prescription drug insurance: the persistence of an individual's high spending over multiple years. Using MEDSTAT claims data and data from the Medicare Survey of Current Beneficiaries, we find...