This paper compares health care systems. It looks beyond normal academic, political, or journalistic rhetoric, by exactly sticking to facts, i.e. empirical data (in particular data provided by the WHO) and comprehensive case study analyses. The paper finds that a number of myths and common...

In the United States, many young adults do not have full-year health insurance. However, insurance coverage increases as young adults mature, obtain education, and work experience. Previous empirical work has not determined whether the increase in insurance coverage associated with age is caused...

Health-insurance premiums account for a significant portion of the cost base of U.S. corporations. A recent study finds that health-insurance premiums increase for firms that experience positive profit shocks (Dafny 2010), suggesting that the U.S. health-insurance market is not perfectly...

Empirical evidence for the U.S. suggests that illicit consumption of opioids increases in association with socio-economic deprivation of the middle-class. To explore the underlying mechanisms, we set up a task-based labor market model with endogenous mental health status and a health care...

Empirical evidence for the U.S. suggests that the consumption of intoxicants increases in association with the socio-economic deprivation of the middle-class. To explore the underlying mechanisms, we set up a task-based labor market model with endogenous mental health status and a health care...

Many competitive health insurance markets adjust payments to participating health plans according to their enrollees' risk - including based on diagnostic information. We investigate responses of German health plans to the introduction of morbidity-based risk adjustment in the Statutory Health...

Medicare Part D provides prescription drug coverage through Medicare approved plans offered by private insurance companies and HMOs. In this paper, we study the role of current prescription drug use and health risks, related expectations, and subjective factors in the demand for prescription...

Using data from the 1998 Wave of the Health and Retirement Study, we examine the effect of social interactions on the health insurance choices of the elderly. We find that having more social interactions, as measured by contacts with friends and neighbors, reduces the likelihood of enrolling in...

We study the moral hazard effects of the drug copayment threshold in Finland using detailed prescription drug purchase data. The analysis reveals that the average drug costs increase discontinuously by 17% at the threshold above which out-of-pocket drug costs decrease substantially. Our results...

Die private (PKV) und die gesetzliche Krankenversicherung (GKV) werden durch die so genannte Friedensgrenze getrennt. Um die daraus resultierende Risikoselektion zu vermindern, wird die Einführung einer sogenannten Ausscheidegrenze nach niederländischem Vorbild mit Hilfe der...