Beneficiary price sensitivity in the Medicare prescription drug plan market
研究了美国医疗保险处方药计划市场中受益人对保费的敏感性，发现需求弹性为-1.45，高于医疗保险HMO市场，表明产品差异化低且更换成本小。
The Medicare stand-alone prescription drug plan (PDP) came into existence in 2006 as part of the Medicare prescription drug benefit. It is the most popular plan type among Medicare drug plans and large numbers of plans are available to all beneficiaries. In this article we present the first analysis of beneficiary price sensitivity in the PDP market. Our estimate of elasticity of enrollment with respect to premium, -1.45, is larger in magnitude than has been found in the Medicare HMO market. This high degree of beneficiary price sensitivity for PDPs is consistent with relatively low product differentiation, low fixed costs of entry in the PDP market, and the fact that, in contrast to changing HMOs, beneficiaries can select a PDP without disrupting doctor-patient relationships.