This paper uses a unique data set from 1957 to examine whether or not Blue Cross and Blue Shield suffered from an adverse selection death spiral after for-profit commercial insurance companies entered the market for health insurance. Results suggest that moving to experience rating may have helped the Blues counteract adverse selection in the group health insurance market. Adverse selection posed a greater problem for the Blues in the market for individual health insurance, possibly because of differences in the way the Blues screened potential enrollees relative to commercial insurance companies.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. 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.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
9167.
Length: Date of creation: Sep 2002 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9167
Note: DAE HC Contact details of provider: Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. Phone: 617-868-3900 Email: Web page: http://www.nber.org More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Related research
Keywords:
Other versions of this item:
Find related papers by JEL classification: I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets N72 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
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.: