CONTEXT Policymakers as well as physicians need to understand how rapidly rising health care costs are affecting specific groups of patients. OBJECTIVE To estimate the number and characteristics of individuals in the United States faced with very high financial burdens for health care. DESIGN, SETTING, AND POPULATION Data from a nationally representative sample of civilian, noninstitutional...

Benefiting from access to detailed data on the federally run National Flood Insurance Program for the entire state of Georgia, USA, we analyze residential flood insurance purchasing behavior in that state over more than three decades (1978–2010). The demand for flood insurance on an extensive margin, based on take-up rates, is found to be relatively price inelastic. Aligned with the behavioral ...

OBJECTIVE Rwanda has expanded mutual health insurance considerably in recent years, which has a great potential for making health services more accessible. In this paper, we examine the effect of mutual health insurance (MHI) on utilization of health services and financial risk protection. METHODS We used data from a nationally representative survey from 2005-2006. We analysed this data throu...

This paper analyzes whether individuals who share risk have suboptimal demand for microinsurance due to a social dilemma. Even when individuals prefer to enroll as a group, they are tempted to free-ride on contributions from their peers and may fail to coordinate on their social optimum when insurance is offered at the individual level. A framed laboratory experiment in Tanzania, eliciting dema...

background : one of the criteria of health equity is having health insurance coverage. construction workers and their families are one of the most vulnerable populations regarding diseases and accidents. thus, this study was conducted with the aim to determine the utilization rate of health services among construction workers ‎and their families. methods: in this descriptive-analytical study, t...

BACKGROUND Uninsured adults in the United States have poor access to health care services and worse health outcomes than insured adults. Little is known about the association between lack of insurance and chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) or death in patients at high risk of kidney disease. We used 2000-2011 data from the National Kidney Foundation's Kid...

AIM To examine why the demand for substitutive voluntary health insurance in Germany is low. METHOD A comparison of the benefits and costs of statutory and voluntary health insurance in Germany, based on a review of literature published in academic journals and books as well as gray literature. RESULTS Employees in Germany with gross earnings over 40,500 Euros a year can choose to opt out o...