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Anti-insurance: Analysing the Health Insurance System in Australia

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Author Info
Joshua S. Gans
Stephen P. King

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Abstract

This paper develops a model to analyse the Australian health insurance system when individuals differ in their health risk and this risk is private information. In Australia private insurance both duplicates and supplements public insurance. We show that, absent any other interventions, this results in implicit transfers of wealth from those most at risk of adverse health to those least at risk. At the social level, these transfers represent a mean preserving spread of income, creating social risk and lowering welfare - what we call anti-insurance. The recently introduced rebate on private health insurance can improve welfare by alleviating anti-insurance. Copyright 2003. The Economic Society of Australia.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by The Economic Society of Australia in its journal The Economic Record.

Volume (Year): 79 (2003)
Issue (Month): 247 (December)
Pages: 473-486
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Handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:79:y:2003:i:247:p:473-486

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  1. Wilson, Charles, 1977. "A model of insurance markets with incomplete information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 167-207, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Jack, William, 1998. "Intergenerational Risk Sharing and Health Insurance Financing," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 74(225), pages 153-61, June.
  3. Hurley, Jeremiah & Vaithianathan, Rhema & Crossley, Thomas F. & Cobb-Clark, Deborah, 2002. "Parallel Private Health Insurance in Australia: A Cautionary Tale and Lessons for Canada," IZA Discussion Papers 515, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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  4. David M. Cutler & Richard J. Zeckhauser, 1999. "The Anatomy of Health Insurance," NBER Working Papers 7176, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Vaithianathan, Rhema, 2002. "Will Subsidising Private Health Insurance Help the Public Health System?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 78(242), pages 277-83, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1976. "Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets: An Essay on the Economics of Imperfect Information," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 90(4), pages 630-49, November.
  7. Amy Finkelstein, 2002. "When Can Partial Public Insurance Produce Pareto Improvements?," NBER Working Papers 9035, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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This page was last updated on 2008-9-29.

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