Demand and Selection Effects in Supplemental Health Insurance in Germany
نویسندگان
چکیده
This paper empirically assesses the selection effects and determinants of the demand for supplemental health insurance that covers hospital and dental benefits in Germany. Our representative dataset provides doctor-diagnosed indicators of the individual’s health status, risk attitude, demand for medical services and insurance purchases in other lines of insurance as well as rich demographic and socioeconomic information. Controlling for a wide range of individual preferences, we find evidence of adverse selection for individuals aged 65 and younger for hospital coverage despite initial individual underwriting by insurers. The reverse is true for individuals older than 65; individuals with supplemental hospital coverage are healthier on average. In addition, insurance affinity and income are the most important drivers of the demand for both types of coverage. JEL-Classification: D82, G22, I11
منابع مشابه
Demand for Supplemental Health Insurance in Germany – Improving Quality of Care and Closing Coverage Gaps
We use the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) to analyze determinants of the demand for supplemental health insurance covering hospital and dental in Germany. The GSOP dataset provides doctor diagnosed indicators of the individual’s health state, risk attitude, and demand for medical services and insurance purchases in other lines of insurance as well as rich demographical and socioeconomical ...
متن کاملAdverse selection, moral hazard and the demand for Medigap insurance
The size of adverse selection and moral hazard effects in health insurance markets has important policy implications. For example, if adverse selection effects are small while moral hazard effects are large, conventional remedies for inefficiencies created by adverse selection (e.g., mandatory insurance enrolment) may lead to substantial increases in health care spending. Unfortunately, there i...
متن کاملCompetition on selection and market access regulation in health insurance: evidence from Germany
In this project I study the interaction between two competing systems in the German health insurance market that offer horizontally differentiated insurance plans. The pool of consumers for which these companies compete is limited by regulatory access restrictions. Pricing and quality in both systems is regulated by the government, but to a different degree. While the companies in the so-called...
متن کاملSupplemental health insurance and equality of access in Belgium.
The effects of supplemental health insurance on health-care consumption crucially depend on specific institutional features of the health-care system. We analyse the situation in Belgium, a country with a very broad coverage in compulsory social health insurance and where supplemental insurance mainly refers to extra-billing in hospitals. Within this institutional background, we find only weak ...
متن کاملAdverse and Advantageous Selection in the Medicare Supplemental Market: A Bayesian Analysis of Prescription drug Expenditure.
This paper develops an extended specification of the two-part model, which controls for unobservable self-selection and heterogeneity of health insurance, and analyzes the impact of Medicare supplemental plans on the prescription drug expenditure of the elderly, using a linked data set based on the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey data for 2003-2004. The econometric analysis is conducted usi...
متن کامل