German Long-Term Health Insurance: Theory Meets Evidence
本摘要源自该文的 NBER 工作论文版（2020），正式发表版可能有调整。
By insuring policyholders against contemporaneous health expenditure shocks and future reclassification risk, long-term health insurance contracts are a viable alternative to communityrated short-term contracts with an individual mandate. German long-term health insurance (GLTHI) is the largest market for private long-term health insurance contracts in the world. It features a simple design with initial risk-rating followed by guaranteed-renewable constant premiums over the lifecycle. We estimate the key ingredients of a life-cycle model to assess the welfare effects of the GLTHI contract and compare them to the optimal contract. This comparison provides further lessons about the trade-offs of long-term health insurance design.