One of the major problems of the U.S. health insurance market is that it leaves individuals exposed to reclassification risk. Reclassification risk arises because the health conditions of individuals evolve over time, while a typical health insurance contract only lasts for one year. A change in...

One of the major problems of the U.S. health insurance market is that it leaves individuals exposed to reclassification risk. Reclassification risk arises because the health conditions of individuals evolve over time, while a typical health insurance contract only lasts for one year. A change in...

How has the economic risk of health spending changed over time for U.S. households? We describe trends in aggregate health spending in the United States and how private insurance markets and public insurance programs have changed over time. We then present evidence from Consumer Expenditure...

Substantial uncertainty exists regarding the causal effect of health insurance on the utilization of care. Most studies cannot determine whether the large differences in healthcare utilization between the insured and the uninsured are due to insurance status or to other unobserved differences...

Following the adoption of the Health Insurance Law in Bulgaria (1999), which provided the legal framework for the development of the voluntary health insurance, several health insurance funds had been established. Bulgaria had two licensed voluntary health insurance funds in 2001; in 2003 their...

Since aging will probably cause a sharp increase in the demand for long-term care in the coming decades, in the numerous countries where Social Security does not recognize dependence on long-term care as a general risk of life, private insurance may provide long-term care for those who do not...

We examine vertical integration and exclusive vertical restraints in health-care markets where insurers and hospitals bilaterally bargain over contracts. We employ a bargaining model in a concentrated health-care market of two hospitals and two health insurers competing on premiums. Without...

A positive correlation between insurance coverage and ex post risk can be an indicator for private information in insurance markets. However, this test fails if agents have heterogeneous risk attitudes. We propose a new test that conditions on unobserved types of individuals who differ in their...

Competition between insurance companies for employees of a firm often increases the prices and reduces the availability of high-quality health plans offered to employees. An insurance company can reduce competition by signing an exclusive contract, which guarantees that the company is the only...

This paper provides an analysis of exclusive contracts between health care providers and insurers in a model where some consumers choose to stay uninsured. In case of a monopoly insurer, exclusion of a provider changes the distribution of consumers who choose not to insure. Although the...