IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lmu/muenec/21080.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Price Sensitivity of Health Plan Choice: Evidence from Retirees in the German Social Health Insurance

Author

Listed:
  • Wuppermann, Amelie C.
  • Bauhoff, Sebastian
  • Grabka, Markus M.

Abstract

We investigate two determinants of the price sensitivity of health plan demand: the size of the choice set and the salience of premium differences. Using variation in both features in the German Social Health Insurance (SHI) and information on health plan switches of retirees in the German Socio Economic Panel, augmented with information on individuals’ choice sets we find that retirees react less to potential savings from switching when they have more plans to choose from and when differences between premiums are less salient. Simplifying choices could save consumers money and improve the functioning of the health insurance market.

Suggested Citation

  • Wuppermann, Amelie C. & Bauhoff, Sebastian & Grabka, Markus M., 2014. "The Price Sensitivity of Health Plan Choice: Evidence from Retirees in the German Social Health Insurance," Discussion Papers in Economics 21080, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:lmu:muenec:21080
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/21080/1/Wuppermann_etal_Juli2014.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leemore Dafny & Kate Ho & Mauricio Varela, 2013. "Let Them Have Choice: Gains from Shifting Away from Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance and toward an Individual Exchange," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 32-58, February.
    2. Frank, Richard G. & Lamiraud, Karine, 2009. "Choice, price competition and complexity in markets for health insurance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 550-562, August.
    3. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    4. Raj Chetty & Adam Looney & Kory Kroft, 2009. "Salience and Taxation: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1145-1177, September.
    5. Gert Wagner & Jan Göbel & Peter Krause & Rainer Pischner & Ingo Sieber, 2008. "Das Sozio-oekonomische Panel (SOEP): Multidisziplinäres Haushaltspanel und Kohortenstudie für Deutschland – Eine Einführung (für neue Datennutzer) mit einem Ausblick (für erfahrene Anwender)," AStA Wirtschafts- und Sozialstatistisches Archiv, Springer;Deutsche Statistische Gesellschaft - German Statistical Society, vol. 2(4), pages 301-328, December.
    6. Buchmueller, Thomas, 2006. "Price and the health plan choices of retirees," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 81-101, January.
    7. Schmitz, Hendrik & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2011. "In Absolute or Relative Terms? How Framing Prices Affects the Consumer Price Sensitivity of Health Plan Choice," Ruhr Economic Papers 304, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    8. Strombom, Bruce A. & Buchmueller, Thomas C. & Feldstein, Paul J., 2002. "Switching costs, price sensitivity and health plan choice," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 89-116, January.
    9. Baicker, Katherine & Chernew, Michael E. & Robbins, Jacob A., 2013. "The spillover effects of Medicare managed care: Medicare Advantage and hospital utilization," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1289-1300.
    10. Heiss, Florian & Leive, Adam & McFadden, Daniel & Winter, Joachim, 2013. "Plan selection in Medicare Part D: Evidence from administrative data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1325-1344.
    11. Bauhoff, Sebastian, 2012. "Do health plans risk-select? An audit study on Germany's Social Health Insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(9-10), pages 750-759.
    12. Nicole Maestas & Mathis Schroeder & Dana P. Goldman, 2007. "Price Variation in Markets with Homogeneous Goods The Case of Medigap," Working Papers WR-504, RAND Corporation.
    13. Jessica Cohen & Pascaline Dupas, 2010. "Free Distribution or Cost-Sharing? Evidence from a Randomized Malaria Prevention Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 1-45.
    14. Jason Abaluck & Jonathan Gruber, 2011. "Choice Inconsistencies among the Elderly: Evidence from Plan Choice in the Medicare Part D Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1180-1210, June.
    15. Jonathan D. Ketcham & Claudio Lucarelli & Eugenio J. Miravete & M. Christopher Roebuck, 2012. "Sinking, Swimming, or Learning to Swim in Medicare Part D," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2639-2673, October.
    16. Schram, Arthur & Sonnemans, Joep, 2011. "How individuals choose health insurance: An experimental analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(6), pages 799-819, August.
    17. Amy Finkelstein, 2009. "E-ztax: Tax Salience and Tax Rates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 969-1010.
    18. Amy Finkelstein, 2010. "Comment on "Mind the Gap! Consumer Perceptions and Choices of Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plans"," NBER Chapters, in: Research Findings in the Economics of Aging, pages 481-484, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Jessica Cohen & Pascaline Dupas, 2008. "Free Distribution or Cost-Sharing? Evidence from a Malaria Prevention Experiment," NBER Working Papers 14406, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Keith Marzilli Ericson & Amanda Starc, 2012. "Heuristics and Heterogeneity in Health Insurance Exchanges: Evidence from the Massachusetts Connector," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 493-497, May.
    21. Sinaiko, Anna D. & Hirth, Richard A., 2011. "Consumers, health insurance and dominated choices," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 450-457, March.
    22. Benjamin R. Handel, 2013. "Adverse Selection and Inertia in Health Insurance Markets: When Nudging Hurts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(7), pages 2643-2682, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bauhoff, Sebastian & Fischer, Lisa & Göpffarth, Dirk & Wuppermann, Amelie C., 2017. "Plan responses to diagnosis-based payment: Evidence from Germany’s morbidity-based risk adjustment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 397-413.
    2. Pilny, Adam & Wübker, Ansgar & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2017. "Introducing risk adjustment and free health plan choice in employer-based health insurance: Evidence from Germany," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 330-351.
    3. Tamara Bischof & Christian P.R. Schmid, 2018. "Consumer price sensitivity and health plan choice in a regulated competition setting," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(9), pages 1366-1379, September.
    4. Christian Bünnings & Hendrik Schmitz & Harald Tauchmann & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2015. "How Health Plan Enrollees Value Prices Relative to Supplemental Benefits and Service Quality," Ruhr Economic Papers 0545, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    5. Bunnings, C,; & Schmitz, H,; & Tauchmann, H,; & Ziebarth, N.R,;, 2015. "How Health Plan Enrollees Value Prices Relative to Supplemental Benefits and Service Quality," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 15/02, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    6. Kelaher, Margaret & Prang, Khic-Houy & Sabanovic, Hana & Dunt, David, 2019. "The impact of public performance reporting on health plan selection and switching: A systematic review and meta-analysis," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 62-70.
    7. Dalit Daily-Amir & Hansjörg Albrecher & Martin Bladt & Joël Wagner, 2019. "On Market Share Drivers in the Swiss Mandatory Health Insurance Sector," Risks, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-25, November.
    8. repec:zbw:rwirep:0545 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Sai Krishnan S. & Subramanian S. Iyer & Sai Balaji SMR, 2022. "Insights from behavioral economics for policymakers of choice‐based health insurance markets: A scoping review," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 115-143, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wuppermann, Amelie & Bauhoff, Sebastian & Grabka, Markus, 2014. "The Price Sensitivity of Health Plan Choice among Retirees: Evidence from the German Social Health Insurance," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100352, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Bünnings, Christian & Schmitz, Hendrik & Tauchmann, Harald & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2015. "How health plan enrollees value prices relative to supplemental benefits and service quality," FAU Discussion Papers in Economics 02/2015, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute for Economics.
    3. Christian Bünnings & Hendrik Schmitz & Harald Tauchmann & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2015. "How Health Plan Enrollees Value Prices Relative to Supplemental Benefits and Service Quality," Ruhr Economic Papers 0545, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    4. Martin Gaynor & Kate Ho & Robert J. Town, 2015. "The Industrial Organization of Health-Care Markets," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(2), pages 235-284, June.
    5. Nathan Kettlewell, 2020. "Policy Choice and Product Bundling in a Complicated Health Insurance Market: Do People Get It Right?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(2), pages 566-610.
    6. repec:zbw:rwirep:0545 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Ericson, Keith M. Marzilli & Starc, Amanda, 2016. "How product standardization affects choice: Evidence from the Massachusetts Health Insurance Exchange," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 71-85.
    8. Saurabh Bhargava & George Loewenstein & Justin Sydnor, 2015. "Do Individuals Make Sensible Health Insurance Decisions? Evidence from a Menu with Dominated Options," NBER Working Papers 21160, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Afendulis, Christopher C. & Sinaiko, Anna D. & Frank, Richard G., 2015. "Dominated choices and Medicare Advantage enrollment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 72-83.
    10. Schmitz, Hendrik & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2011. "In Absolute or Relative Terms? How Framing Prices Affects the Consumer Price Sensitivity of Health Plan Choice," Ruhr Economic Papers 304, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    11. Tamara Bischof & Michael Gerfin & Tobias Mueller, 2021. "Attention Please! Health Plan Choice and (In-)Attention," Diskussionsschriften dp2111, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    12. repec:zbw:rwirep:0304 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Hendrik Schmitz & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2011. "In Absolute or Relative Terms? How Framing Prices Affects the Consumer Price Sensitivity of," Ruhr Economic Papers 0304, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    14. Pilny, Adam & Wübker, Ansgar & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2017. "Introducing risk adjustment and free health plan choice in employer-based health insurance: Evidence from Germany," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 330-351.
    15. Kairies-Schwarz, Nadja & Kokot, Johanna & Vomhof, Markus & Weßling, Jens, 2017. "Health insurance choice and risk preferences under cumulative prospect theory – an experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 374-397.
    16. Keith M. Marzilli Ericson & Amanda Starc, 2015. "Pricing Regulation and Imperfect Competition on the Massachusetts Health Insurance Exchange," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(3), pages 667-682, July.
    17. Heiss, Florian & Leive, Adam & McFadden, Daniel & Winter, Joachim, 2013. "Plan selection in Medicare Part D: Evidence from administrative data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1325-1344.
    18. Florian Heiss & Daniel McFadden & Joachim Winter & Amelie Wuppermann & Bo Zhou, 2016. "Inattention and Switching Costs as Sources of Inertia in Medicare Part D," NBER Working Papers 22765, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. M. Kate Bundorf & Maria Polyakova & Ming Tai-Seale, 2019. "How do Humans Interact with Algorithms? Experimental Evidence from Health Insurance," NBER Working Papers 25976, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Johannes Abeler & David Huffman & Colin Raymond, 2023. "Incentive Complexity, Bounded Rationality and Effort Provision," Economics Series Working Papers 1012, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    21. Kairies-Schwarz, Nadja & Kokot, Johanna & Vomhof, Markus & Wessling, Jens, 2014. "How Do Consumers Choose Health Insurance? – An Experiment on Heterogeneity in Attribute Tastes and Risk Preferences," Ruhr Economic Papers 537, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    22. Hermanns, Benedicta & Kairies-Schwarz, Nadja & Kokot, Johanna & Vomhof, Markus, 2023. "Heterogeneity in health insurance choice: An experimental investigation of consumer choice and feature preferences," hche Research Papers 29, University of Hamburg, Hamburg Center for Health Economics (hche).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    health plan choice; choice architecture; German social health insurance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lmu:muenec:21080. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tamilla Benkelberg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.