| 来源类型 | Working Paper |
| 规范类型 | 报告 |
| DOI | 10.3386/w21160 |
| 来源ID | Working Paper 21160 |
| Do Individuals Make Sensible Health Insurance Decisions? Evidence from a Menu with Dominated Options | |
| Saurabh Bhargava; George Loewenstein; Justin Sydnor | |
| 发表日期 | 2015-05-11 |
| 出版年 | 2015 |
| 语种 | 英语 |
| 摘要 | The recent expansion of health-plan choice has been touted as increasing competition and enabling people to choose plans that fit their needs. This study provides new evidence challenging these proposed benefits of expanded health-insurance choice. We examine health-insurance decisions of employees at a large U.S. firm where a new plan menu included a large share of financially dominated options. This menu offers a unique litmus test for evaluating choice quality since standard risk preferences and beliefs about one’s health cannot rationalize enrollment into the dominated plans. We find that a majority of employees – and in particular, older workers, women, and low earners – chose dominated options, resulting in substantial excess spending. Most employees would have fared better had they instead been enrolled in the single actuarially-best plan. In follow-up hypothetical-choice experiments, we observe similar choices despite far simpler menus. We find these choices reflect a severe deficit in health insurance literacy and naïve considerations of health risk and price, rather than a sensible comparison of plan value. Our results challenge the standard practice of inferring risk attitudes and assessing welfare from insurance choices, and raise doubts whether recent health reforms will deliver their promised benefits. |
| 主题 | Microeconomics ; Economics of Information ; Health, Education, and Welfare ; Health |
| URL | https://www.nber.org/papers/w21160 |
| 来源智库 | National Bureau of Economic Research (United States) |
| 引用统计 | |
| 资源类型 | 智库出版物 |
| 条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/578835 |
| 推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | Saurabh Bhargava,George Loewenstein,Justin Sydnor. Do Individuals Make Sensible Health Insurance Decisions? Evidence from a Menu with Dominated Options. 2015. |
| 条目包含的文件 | 条目无相关文件。 | |||||
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