A common approach to avoid risk selection in health insurance markets is to define and enforce a community-rated basic benefit package. The market for complementary insurance is usually completely separate from the market for basic health insurance. In Switzerland, however, the basic benefit...

We study the effects of "balance billing", i.e., allowing physicians to charge a fee from patients in addition to the fee paid by Medicare. First, we show that on pure efficiency grounds the optimal Medicare fee under balance billing is zero. An active Medicare policy thus can only be justified...

Idee und Ziele des Risikostrukturausgleichs - Der Risikostrukturausgleich (im folgenden: RSA) in der Gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung wurde mit dem Gesundheits-Strukturgesetz von 1993 eingeführt und trat am 1.1.1994 in Kraft. Mit dem selben Gesetz wurden auch die Wahl- und Wechselmöglichkeiten...

This paper studies how society votes on the payroll taxes of a basic income and a social health insurance scheme. Individuals differ along the two most important dimensions when it comes to the design of the two welfare schemes, namely, income and risk. Even though the introduction of a basic...

This paper studies how society votes on the payroll taxes of a basic income and a social health insurance scheme. Individuals differ along the two most important dimensions when it comes to the design of the two welfare schemes, namely, income and risk. Even though the introduction of a basic...