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Book/Printed Material Death spiral or euthanasia? the demise of generous group health insurance coverage

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Title

  • Death spiral or euthanasia? the demise of generous group health insurance coverage

Summary

  • "Employers must determine which sorts of healthcare insurance plans to offer employees and also set employee premiums for each plan provided. Depending on how they structure the premiums that employees pay across different healthcare insurance plans, plan sponsors alter the incentives to choose one plan over another. If employees know they differ by risk level but premiums do not fully reflect these risk differences, this can give rise to a so-called "death spiral" due to adverse selection. In this paper use longitudinal information from a natural experiment in the management of health benefits for a large employer to explore the impact of moving from a fixed dollar contribution policy to a risk-adjusted employer contribution policy. Our results suggest that implementing a significant risk adjustment had no discernable effect on adverse selection against the most generous indemnity insurance policy. This stands in stark contrast to previous studies, which have tended to find large impacts. Further analysis suggests that previous studies which appeared to detect plans in the throes of a death spiral, may instead have been experiencing an inexorable movement away from a non-preferred product, one that would have been inefficient for almost all workers even in the absence of adverse selection"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.

Names

  • Pauly, Mark V., 1941-
  • Mitchell, Olivia S.
  • Zeng, Yuhui
  • National Bureau of Economic Research

Created / Published

  • Cambridge, MA : National Bureau of Economic Research, c2004.

Headings

  • -  Group insurance
  • -  Health insurance

Notes

  • -  Title from PDF file as viewed on 1/12/2005.
  • -  Includes bibliographical references.
  • -  Also available in print.
  • -  Mode of access: World Wide Web.
  • -  System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Call Number/Physical Location

  • HB1

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 2005615575

Access Advisory

  • Unrestricted online access

Online Format

  • image
  • pdf

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Pauly, Mark V, Olivia S Mitchell, Yuhui Zeng, and National Bureau Of Economic Research. Death Spiral or Euthanasia? the Demise of Generous Group Health Insurance Coverage. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2004. Pdf. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/2005615575/.

APA citation style:

Pauly, M. V., Mitchell, O. S., Zeng, Y. & National Bureau Of Economic Research. (2004) Death Spiral or Euthanasia? the Demise of Generous Group Health Insurance Coverage. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/2005615575/.

MLA citation style:

Pauly, Mark V, et al. Death Spiral or Euthanasia? the Demise of Generous Group Health Insurance Coverage. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2004. Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <aj.sunback.homes/item/2005615575/>.