Demand elasticities and service selection incentives among competing private health plans

B-Tier
Journal: Journal of Health Economics
Year: 2017
Volume: 56
Issue: C
Pages: 352-367

Authors (3)

Ellis, Randall P. (Boston University) Martins, Bruno (not in RePEc) Zhu, Wenjia (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

0.670 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We examine selection incentives by health plans while refining the selection index of McGuire et al. (2014) to reflect not only service predictability and predictiveness but also variation in cost sharing, risk-adjusted profits, profit margins, and newly-refined demand elasticities across 26 disaggregated types of service. We contrast selection incentives, measured by service selection elasticities, across six plan types using privately-insured claims data from 73 large employers from 2008 to 2014. Compared to flat capitation, concurrent risk adjustment reduces the elasticity by 47%, prospective risk adjustment by 43%, simple reinsurance system by 32%, and combined concurrent risk adjustment with reinsurance by 60%. Reinsurance significantly reduces the variability of individual-level profits, but increases the correlation of expected spending with profits, which strengthens selection incentives.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:jhecon:v:56:y:2017:i:c:p:352-367
Journal Field
Health
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-25