IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejpol/v10y2018i3p154-92.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Strategic Formulary Design in Medicare Part D Plans

Author

Listed:
  • Kurt Lavetti
  • Kosali Simon

Abstract

The design of Medicare Part D causes most beneficiaries to receive fragmented health insurance, with drug and medical coverage separated. Fragmentation is potentially inefficient since separate insurers optimize over only one component of healthcare spending, despite complementarities and substitutabilities between healthcare types. Fragmentation of only some plans can also lead to market distortions due to differential adverse selection, as integrated plans may use drug formularies to induce enrollment by patients that are profitable in the medical insurance market. We study the design of insurance plans in Medicare Part D and find that formularies reflect these two differences in incentives.

Suggested Citation

  • Kurt Lavetti & Kosali Simon, 2018. "Strategic Formulary Design in Medicare Part D Plans," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 154-192, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:10:y:2018:i:3:p:154-92
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/pol.20160248
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20160248
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=7531
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=5Lw3nKCEiKq44vFei9APtAKQjL_mSQLl
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=amm1mXitwuBSW5QK4UcSBjUUiEMC4LRV
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Rothschild & Joseph Stiglitz, 1976. "Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets: An Essay on the Economics of Imperfect Information," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 90(4), pages 629-649.
    2. Duggan, Mark & Starc, Amanda & Vabson, Boris, 2016. "Who benefits when the government pays more? Pass-through in the Medicare Advantage program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 50-67.
    3. Pauly Mark V. & Zeng Yuhui, 2004. "Adverse Selection and the Challenges to Stand-Alone Prescription Drug Insurance," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-22, January.
    4. 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.
    5. Michael Geruso & Timothy Layton, 2020. "Upcoding: Evidence from Medicare on Squishy Risk Adjustment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(3), pages 984-1026.
    6. Marika Cabral & Michael Geruso & Neale Mahoney, 2018. "Do Larger Health Insurance Subsidies Benefit Patients or Producers? Evidence from Medicare Advantage," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(8), pages 2048-2087, August.
    7. Mark V. Pauly & Yuhui Zeng, 2004. "Adverse Selection and the Challenges to Stand-Alone Prescription Drug Insurance," NBER Chapters, in: Frontiers in Health Policy Research, Volume 7, pages 55-74, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. ., 2014. "Foundations of markets," Chapters, in: How Markets Work and Fail, and What to Make of Them, chapter 2, pages 19-54, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Maria Polyakova, 2016. "Regulation of Insurance with Adverse Selection and Switching Costs: Evidence from Medicare Part D," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 165-195, July.
    10. Colleen Carey, 2017. "Technological Change and Risk Adjustment: Benefit Design Incentives in Medicare Part D," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 38-73, February.
    11. Lustig, Joshua, 2008. "The Welfare Effects of Adverse Selection in Privatized Medicare," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt7n09099j, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    12. Liran Einav & Amy Finkelstein & Maria Polyakova, 2016. "Private Provision of Social Insurance: Drug-specific Price Elasticities and Cost Sharing in Medicare Part D," NBER Working Papers 22277, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Michele Fioretti & Hongming Wang, 2019. "Subsidizing Inequality: Performance Pay and Risk Selection in Medicare," Sciences Po Economics Discussion Papers 2019-15, Sciences Po Departement of Economics.
    2. Jonathan Gruber, 2017. "Delivering Public Health Insurance through Private Plan Choice in the United States," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(4), pages 3-22, Fall.
    3. Michael Geruso & Timothy Layton & Daniel Prinz, 2019. "Screening in Contract Design: Evidence from the ACA Health Insurance Exchanges," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 64-107, May.
    4. Bijlsma, Michiel & Boone, Jan & Zwart, Gijsbert, 2017. "The complementarity between risk adjustment and community rating: Distorting market outcomes to facilitate redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 21-37.
    5. Michael Geruso & Timothy J. Layton, 2017. "Selection in Health Insurance Markets and Its Policy Remedies," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(4), pages 23-50, Fall.
    6. Geruso, Michael & Layton, Timothy J. & McCormack, Grace & Shepard, Mark, 2019. "The Two Margin Problem in Insurance Markets," Working Paper Series rwp19-035, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    7. Michele Fioretti & Hongming Wang, 2020. "Performance Pay in Insurance Markets: Evidence from Medicare," Working Papers 2020.03, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.
    8. David Dranove & Christopher Ody & Amanda Starc, 2021. "A Dose of Managed Care: Controlling Drug Spending in Medicaid," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 170-197, January.
    9. A. A. Withagen-Koster & R. C. Kleef & F. Eijkenaar, 2020. "Incorporating self-reported health measures in risk equalization through constrained regression," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 21(4), pages 513-528, June.
    10. Timothy Layton & Alice K. Ndikumana & Mark Shepard, 2017. "Health Plan Payment in Medicaid Managed Care: A Hybrid Model of Regulated Competition," NBER Working Papers 23518, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. 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.
    12. Ausmita Ghosh & Kosali Simon & Benjamin D. Sommers, 2017. "The Effect of State Medicaid Expansions on Prescription Drug Use: Evidence from the Affordable Care Act," NBER Working Papers 23044, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Martin Andersen, 2017. "Constraints on Formulary Design Under the Affordable Care Act," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(12), pages 160-178, December.
    14. Savannah L. Bergquist & Timothy J. Layton & Thomas G. McGuire & Sherri Rose, 2018. "Intervening on the Data to Improve the Performance of Health Plan Payment Methods," NBER Working Papers 24491, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Ghosh, Ausmita & Simon, Kosali & Sommers, Benjamin D., 2019. "The Effect of Health Insurance on Prescription Drug Use Among Low-Income Adults:Evidence from Recent Medicaid Expansions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 64-80.
    16. Bergquist, Savannah L. & Layton, Timothy J. & McGuire, Thomas G. & Rose, Sherri, 2019. "Data transformations to improve the performance of health plan payment methods," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 195-207.

    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. Decarolis, Francesco & Guglielmo, Andrea, 2017. "Insurers’ response to selection risk: Evidence from Medicare enrollment reforms," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 383-396.
    2. Francesco Decarolis & Andrea Guglielmo & Calvin Luscombe, 2017. "Open Enrollment Periods and Plan Choices," NBER Working Papers 24156, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Keaton S. Miller & Amil Petrin & Robert Town & Michael Chernew, 2019. "Optimal Managed Competition Subsidies," NBER Working Papers 25616, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. David Dranove & Christopher Ody & Amanda Starc, 2021. "A Dose of Managed Care: Controlling Drug Spending in Medicaid," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 170-197, January.
    5. Geruso, Michael & Layton, Timothy J. & McCormack, Grace & Shepard, Mark, 2019. "The Two Margin Problem in Insurance Markets," Working Paper Series rwp19-035, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    6. Michele Fioretti & Hongming Wang, 2019. "Subsidizing Inequality: Performance Pay and Risk Selection in Medicare," Sciences Po publications 2019-15, Sciences Po.
    7. Amanda Starc & Robert J. Town, 2015. "Externalities and Benefit Design in Health Insurance," NBER Working Papers 21783, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Michael Geruso & Timothy Layton & Daniel Prinz, 2019. "Screening in Contract Design: Evidence from the ACA Health Insurance Exchanges," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 64-107, May.
    9. Michael Geruso & Timothy J. Layton, 2017. "Selection in Health Insurance Markets and Its Policy Remedies," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(4), pages 23-50, Fall.
    10. Naoki Aizawa & You Suk Kim, 2020. "Government Advertising in Market-Based Public Programs: Evidence from the Health Insurance Marketplace," NBER Working Papers 27695, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Jonathan Gruber, 2017. "Delivering Public Health Insurance through Private Plan Choice in the United States," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(4), pages 3-22, Fall.
    12. Francesco Decarolis & Andrea Guglielmo & Clavin Luscombe, 2020. "Open enrollment periods and plan choices," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(7), pages 733-747, July.
    13. Naoki Aizawa & You Suk Kim, 2015. "Advertising and Risk Selection in Health Insurance Markets," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-101, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    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. Bradley T. Shapiro, 2020. "Advertising in Health Insurance Markets," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(3), pages 587-611, May.
    16. Liran Einav & Amy Finkelstein & Maria Polyakova, 2016. "Private Provision of Social Insurance: Drug-specific Price Elasticities and Cost Sharing in Medicare Part D," NBER Working Papers 22277, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Timothy J. Layton & Randall P. Ellis & Thomas G. McGuire, 2015. "Assessing Incentives for Adverse Selection in Health Plan Payment Systems," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series wp2015-024, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    18. Benjamin R. Handel & Jonathan T. Kolstad & Johannes Spinnewijn, 2019. "Information Frictions and Adverse Selection: Policy Interventions in Health Insurance Markets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(2), pages 326-340, May.
    19. Landais, Camille & Nekoei, Arash & Nilsson, Peter & Seim, David & Spinnewijn, Johannes, 2017. "Risk-based selection in unemployment insurance: evidence and implications," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86596, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Przemysław Jeziorski & Elena Krasnokutskaya & Olivia Ceccarini, 2019. "Skimming from the Bottom: Empirical Evidence of Adverse Selection When Poaching Customers," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(4), pages 543-566, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health
    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • L65 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Chemicals; Rubber; Drugs; Biotechnology; Plastics

    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:aea:aejpol:v:10:y:2018:i:3:p:154-92. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Michael P. Albert). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.