Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Public and Private Health Insurance in Germany: The Ignored Risk Selection Problem

Contents:

Author Info

Abstract

While risk selection within the German public health insurance system has received considerable attention, risk selection between public and private health insurers has largely been ignored. This is surprising since – given the institutional structure – risk selection between systems is likely to be more pronounced. We find clear evidence for risk selection in favor of private insurers. While private insurers are unable to select the healthy upon enrollment they manage to dump high risk individuals who then end up in the public system. This gives private insurers an unjustified competitive advantage vis-à-vis public insurer. A risk adjusted compensation would mitigate this advantage.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.wiwi.uni-augsburg.de/vwl/institut/paper/312.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Universitaet Augsburg, Institute for Economics in its series Discussion Paper Series with number 312.

as in new window
Length: pages
Date of creation: Aug 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:aug:augsbe:0312

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Universitaetsstrasse 16, D-86159 Augsburg, Germany
Phone: +49 821 598 4060
Fax: +49 821 598 4217
Email:
Web page: http://www.wiwi.uni-augsburg.de/vwl/institut
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: risk selection; public and private health insurance; risk adjustment;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Doorslaer, Eddy van & Jones, Andrew M., 2003. "Inequalities in self-reported health: validation of a new approach to measurement," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 61-87, January.
  2. Van de ven, Wynand P.M.M. & Ellis, Randall P., 2000. "Risk adjustment in competitive health plan markets," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 755-845 Elsevier.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aug:augsbe:0312

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dr. Albrecht Bossert).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.