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Working Paper
Getting better, feeling worse : cure rates, health insurance, and welfare
We model a health insurance market where rising cure rates for a disease may paradoxically diminish welfare and even negate the desirability of health insurance altogether. In the model, rising cure rates can affect welfare in two ways: (1) directly, by improving some individuals' health, and (2) indirectly, by influencing the mode and parameters of the optimal insurance contract and, thus, ex post financial wealth distribution. (?Mode? refers to the qualitative specifications of the contract?presence or absence of indemnities and full, partial or zero coverage of treatments received. ...
Journal Article
The trouble with managed care
Journal Article
Has someone already spent the future?
A look at how four trends in the U.S. economy -- high taxes, low savings rates, an aging population, and astronomically high health care costs -- could constrain Americans' living standards over the next few decades.
Newsletter
Getting sick and paying for it
In certain situations, Americans who become chronically ill have to pay higher rates to continue their health insurance coverage. Indeed, although the majority of Americans are insured, hardly anyone is fully protected against the risk that their next insurance policy will cost considerably more than their current one.
Working Paper
Union effects on health insurance provision and coverage in the United States
Since Freeman and Medoff's (1984) comprehensive review of what unions do, union density in the U.S. has fallen substantially. During the same period, employer provision of health insurance has undergone substantial changes in extent and form. Using individual data from various supplements to the Current Population Survey and establishment data from the 1993 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation survey, we investigate the effects of unionization on employer provision of health benefits. We find that in addition to increasing coverage by employer-provided health benefits, unions reduce employee cost ...
Newsletter
New perspectives on health and health care policy
Health care reform has been the primary focus of policymakers for much of the past year, culminating with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010. The vigorous national debate on the act has highlighted the importance of innovative, high-quality research on health and health care policy.
Working Paper
The effects of health insurance and self-insurance on retirement behavior
Using an estimable dynamic programming model of retirement behavior, this paper assesses the relative importance of Medicare and Social Security in determining job exit rates at age 65. Of central importance is whether individuals value health insurance benefits not just for the reduction in average medical expenses, but also for the reduction in the volatility of medical expenses. To address this problem the model accounts explicitly for the effects of health cost volatility and health insurance on retirement behavior. By including a savings decision within the model, we allow for the ...