Pricing and Welfare in Health Plan Choice
研究了健康保险市场中保费不反映个体成本差异导致的效率损失，利用小雇主数据估计福利损失为覆盖成本的2-11%，并分析了风险评级带来的重新分类风险。
Premiums in health insurance markets frequently do not reflect individual differences in costs, either because consumers have private information or because prices are not risk rated. This creates inefficiencies when consumers self-select into plans. We develop a simple econometric model to study this problem and estimate it using data on small employers. We find a welfare loss of 2–11 percent of coverage costs compared to what is feasible with risk rating. Only about one-quarter of this is due to inefficiently chosen uniform contribution levels. We also investigate the reclassification risk created by risk rating individual incremental premiums, finding only a modest welfare cost.