Competition among health insurers is widely considered to be a means of enhancing efficiency and containing costs in the health care system. In this paper, it is argued that this could be unsuccessful since health care providers hold a strong position on the market for health care services....

Most systems of health care financing in EU member states currently include elements of income redistribution. The paper analyzes the effects of shifting income redistribution entirely to the tax system, while confining public health systems to their insurance role. We argue that this reform...

In a model where patients face budget constraints that make some treatments unaffordable, we ask which treatments should be covered by universal basic insurance and which by private voluntary insurance. We argue that both cost effectiveness and prevalence are important if the government wants to...

This paper introduces a tractable model of health insurance with both moral hazard and adverse selection. We show that government sponsored universal basic insurance should cover treatments with the biggest adverse selection problems. Treatments not covered by basic insurance can be covered on...

Public health insurance and other arrangements covering health-costs effectively provide insurance against changes in health status. These arrangements engage in burden-smoothing over the life cycle and entail various elements of redistribution. Lack of portability regarding this type of cover...

Premium subsidies have been advocated as an alternative to social health insurance. These subsidies are paid if expenditure on health insurance exceeds a given share of income. In this paper, we examine whether this approach is superior to social insurance from a welfare perspective. We show...

This paper develops and estimates a life‐cycle equilibrium labor search model in which heterogeneous firms determine health insurance provisions and heterogeneous workers sort themselves into jobs with different compensation packages over the life cycle. I study the optimal joint design of...

To design premium subsidies in a health insurance market it is necessary to estimate consumer demand, cost, and study how different subsidy schemes affect insurers' incentives. I combine data on household-level enrollment and plan-level claims from the Californian Affordable Care Act insurance...

Medicare Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) represent the nation’s largest initiative of Medicare alternative payment models toward value and health outcomes. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have tested various ACO models with differential risk structures, and have issued...

This chapter summarizes the many aspects of public policy for health care. I first consider government policy affecting individual behaviors. Government intervention to change individual actions such as smoking and drinking is frequently justified on externality grounds. External costs of...