{"title":"Health insurance menu design for large employers","authors":"Kate Ho, Robin S. Lee","doi":"10.1111/1756-2171.12452","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We provide a framework for large employers designing a menu of health plan offerings that differ on both financial and nonfinancial dimensions. Using administrative data from Harvard University, we estimate a model of plan choice and utilization, and evaluate the benefits of cost sharing and plan variety. For this population of consumers, and a single plan with a generous out‐of‐pocket maximum and zero deductible, modest cost sharing of approximately 30% maximizes average employee surplus. Gains from offering choice are meaningful only if financial differentiation is paired with differentiation along other dimensions where consumer preferences are correlated with efficient coverage levels.","PeriodicalId":51342,"journal":{"name":"Rand Journal of Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Rand Journal of Economics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1756-2171.12452","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract We provide a framework for large employers designing a menu of health plan offerings that differ on both financial and nonfinancial dimensions. Using administrative data from Harvard University, we estimate a model of plan choice and utilization, and evaluate the benefits of cost sharing and plan variety. For this population of consumers, and a single plan with a generous out‐of‐pocket maximum and zero deductible, modest cost sharing of approximately 30% maximizes average employee surplus. Gains from offering choice are meaningful only if financial differentiation is paired with differentiation along other dimensions where consumer preferences are correlated with efficient coverage levels.
期刊介绍:
The RAND Journal of Economics publishes theoretical and empirical research on industrial organization and closely related topics, including contracts, organizations, law and economics, and regulation. The RAND Journal of Economics, formerly the Bell Journal of Economics, is published quarterly by The RAND Corporation, in conjunction with Blackwell Publishing.