Objective. To evaluate the role of health plan benefit design and price on consumers' decisions to purchase health insurance in the nongroup market and their choice of plan.Data Sources and Study Setting. Administrative data from the three largest nongroup insurers in California and survey data...

In what ways, if any, does the behavior of government and nonprofit organizations differ? This article examines evidence from two industries–nursing homes and mentally handicapped facilities–to determine whether government and nonprofit organization behavior differs in identifiable...

Background: Publicly funded mental health systems are increasingly implementing managed care systems, such as capitation, to control costs. Capitated contracts may increase the risk for disenrollment or adverse outcomes among high cost clients with severe mental illness. Risk-adjusted payments...

American insurers are designing products to contain healthcare costs by making consumers financially responsible for their choices. Little is known about how consumers will view these new designs. Our objective is to examine consumer preferences for selected benefit designs.Methods: We used the...

Small firms that offer health insurance to their employees may face variable premiums if they hire employees with high expected health costs. To avoid expensive premium variability, small firms may attempt to maintain a workforce with low expected health costs. This results in employment...

Objective. To estimate the effect of changes in premiums for individual insurance on decisions to purchase individual insurance and how this price response varies among subgroups of the population.Data Source. Survey responses from the Current Population Survey...

Employer-provided health insurance may restrict job mobility, resulting in “job lock.” Previous research on job lock finds mixed results using several methodologies. We take a new approach to examine job-lock by exploiting the discontinuity created at age 65 through the qualification for...

The focus on employer-provided health insurance in the United States may restrict businesscreation. We address the limited research on the topic of “entrepreneurship lock” by usingrecent panel data from matched Current Population Surveys. We use difference-indifferencemodels to estimate the...

A combination of high deductible health plans (HDHPs) and health savings accounts (HSAs) holds promise for expanding health insurance for small firms. We provide information on HSA take-up and shopping behavior from a 2008 survey of female small business owners, revealing that the HSA...

The focus on employer-provided health insurance in the United States may restrict business creation. We address the limited research on the topic of entrepreneurship lockʺ by using recent panel data from matched Current Population Surveys. We use difference-in-difference models to estimate the...