The Affordable Care Act requires insurers to offer cost sharing reductions (CSRs) to low-income consumers on the Marketplaces. We link 2013-2015 All-Payer Claims Data to 2004-2013 administrative hospital discharge data from Utah and exploit policy-driven differences in the actuarial value of CSR...

This paper provides field evidence on (a) how price framing affects consumers' decision to switch health insurance plans and (b) how the price elasticity of demand for health insurance can be influenced by policymakers through simple regulatory efforts. In 2009, in order to foster competition...

We investigate two determinants of the price sensitivity of health plan demand: the size of the choice set and the salience of premium differences. Using variation in both features in the German Social Health Insurance (SHI) and information on health plan switches of retirees in the German Socio...

With increasing burden of chronic diseases in India and the consequent increase in private expenditure on health care, the inability of poor households to meet healthcare cost is leading to increasing impoverishment on account of unanticipated health shocks. In the absence of an adequate and an...

Social protection systems in developing countries are typically composed of a bundle of benefits, the major ones being health insurance and pensions. Benefit bundling may increase informality and decrease welfare. Indeed, if some of the benefits are valued at substantially less than their cost,...

We study age-rating restrictions in the health insurance marketplaces introduced by the Affordable Care Act. Because most buyers are subsidized, although age-rating restrictions affect pre-subsidy premiums, participation is primarily driven by subsidy generosity rather than pricing decisions....

I study the demand for health insurance during the COVID-19 pandemic using Special Enrollment Period (SEP) individual-level enrollment data from the Washington State Affordable Care Act Marketplace. I document that most individuals enrolling in plans during the pandemic are those who lost...

The paper explores the role that Social Health Insurance (SHI), as an organisational mechanism for raising and pooling additional funds, can play in financing health services in India. It formulates an SHI concept and its aims for India and examines case studies of different countries that have...

This Essay examines the very fragile nature of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's (ACA) approach to near-universal health insurance coverage, as accentuated by a variety of implementation hurdles and challenges. The ACA's vision for expanding insurance coverage was to build on our...

I estimate demand for health insurance using consumer-level data from the California and Washington ACA exchanges. I use the demand estimates to simulate the impact of policies targeting adverse selection, including subsidies and the individual mandate. I find (1) own-premium elasticities of...