IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecinqu/v53y2015i1p508-521.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impact Of A Public Option In The U.S. Health Insurance Market

Author

Listed:
  • Andrei Barbos
  • Yi Deng

Abstract

We develop a game‐theoretical framework to examine the implications of the introduction of a nonprofit “public option” in the U.S. health insurance market. In this model, heterogeneous consumers have to choose between two competing insurance plans. One plan is offered by a profit‐maximizing private insurer; the other by social‐welfare‐maximizing public option. In equilibrium, the distinct objectives of the two insurers induce adverse selection in consumer choice: the public option covers the less healthy consumers, yielding the more profitable segment of market to the private insurer. However, our empirical results suggest that both insurers will capture significant parts of the health insurance market. (JEL I11, L10, L21, L32)

Suggested Citation

  • Andrei Barbos & Yi Deng, 2015. "The Impact Of A Public Option In The U.S. Health Insurance Market," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(1), pages 508-521, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:53:y:2015:i:1:p:508-521
    DOI: 10.1111/ecin.12132
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12132
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ecin.12132?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David M. Cutler & Jonathan Gruber, 1996. "Does Public Insurance Crowd out Private Insurance?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 391-430.
    2. Lo Sasso, Anthony T. & Buchmueller, Thomas C., 2004. "The effect of the state children's health insurance program on health insurance coverage," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 1059-1082, September.
    3. Jeffrey R. Brown & Amy Finkelstein, 2008. "The Interaction of Public and Private Insurance: Medicaid and the Long-Term Care Insurance Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 1083-1102, June.
    4. Leemore S. Dafny, 2010. "Are Health Insurance Markets Competitive?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1399-1431, September.
    5. Gruber, Jonathan & Simon, Kosali, 2008. "Crowd-out 10 years later: Have recent public insurance expansions crowded out private health insurance?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 201-217, March.
    6. Krawczyk, Jacek & Zuccollo, James, 2006. "NIRA-3: An improved MATLAB package for finding Nash equilibria in infinite games," MPRA Paper 1119, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Rask, Kevin N. & Rask, Kimberly J., 2000. "Public insurance substituting for private insurance: new evidence regarding public hospitals, uncompensated care funds, and medicaid," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 1-31, January.
    8. Ham, John C. & Shore-Sheppard, Lara, 2005. "The effect of Medicaid expansions for low-income children on Medicaid participation and private insurance coverage: evidence from the SIPP," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 57-83, January.
    9. Anirban Basu & Willard G. Manning & John Mullahy, 2004. "Comparing alternative models: log vs Cox proportional hazard?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(8), pages 749-765, August.
    10. W. R. Gilks & P. Wild, 1992. "Adaptive Rejection Sampling for Gibbs Sampling," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 41(2), pages 337-348, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Would a public option drive private health insurance out?
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2012-09-12 19:41:00

    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. Ellis, Cameron M. & Esson, Meghan I., 2021. "Crowd-Out and Emergency Department Utilization," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    2. Craig Garthwaite & Tal Gross & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2014. "Public Health Insurance, Labor Supply, and Employment Lock," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(2), pages 653-696.
    3. Anthony T. Lo Sasso & Bruce D. Meyer, 2006. "The Health Care Safety Net and Crowd-Out of Private Health Insurance," NBER Working Papers 11977, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Thomas Buchmueller & John C. Ham & Lara D. Shore-Sheppard, 2015. "The Medicaid Program," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 1, pages 21-136, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Phillip B. Levine & Robin McKnight & Samantha Heep, 2009. "Public Policy, Health Insurance and the Transition to Adulthood," NBER Working Papers 15114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Dolores De La Mata, 2012. "The Effect Of Medicaid Eligibility On Coverage, Utilization, And Children'S Health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(9), pages 1061-1079, September.
    7. Wagner, Kathryn L., 2016. "Shock, but no shift: Hospitals' responses to changes in patient insurance mix," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 46-58.
    8. John C. Ham & Serkan Ozbeklik & Lara D. Shore-Sheppard, 2014. "Estimating Heterogeneous Takeup and Crowd-Out Responses to Existing Medicaid Income Limits and their Nonmarginal Expansions," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(4), pages 872-905.
    9. Hamersma, Sarah & Kim, Matthew, 2013. "Participation and crowd out: Assessing the effects of parental Medicaid expansions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 160-171.
    10. Lincoln H. Groves, 2020. "Still “Saving Babies”? The Impact Of Child Medicaid Expansions On High School Completion Rates," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(1), pages 109-126, January.
    11. Wagner, Kathryn L., 2015. "Medicaid expansions for the working age disabled: Revisiting the crowd-out of private health insurance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 69-82.
    12. Sarah Hamersma & Matthew Kim & Brenden Timpe, 2019. "The Effect Of Parental Medicaid Expansions On Children'S Health Insurance Coverage," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(2), pages 297-311, April.
    13. Cristian Pardo & Whitney Schott, 2012. "Public versus private: evidence on health insurance selection," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 39-61, March.
    14. Li, Xiaoxue & Tian, Liu, 2020. "The effect of non-employment-based health insurance program on firm's offering of health insurance: Evidence from the social health insurance system in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 997-1010.
    15. Bronchetti, Erin Todd, 2014. "Public insurance expansions and the health of immigrant and native children," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 205-219.
    16. Dhaval Dave & Sandra L. Decker & Robert Kaestner & Kosali I. Simon, 2015. "The Effect of Medicaid Expansions in the Late 1980s and Early 1990s on the Labor Supply of Pregnant Women," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 1(2), pages 165-193, Spring.
    17. Phillip B. Levine & Robin McKnight & Samantha Heep, 2011. "How Effective Are Public Policies to Increase Health Insurance Coverage among Young Adults?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 129-156, February.
    18. Andrew M. Cohen & Beth A. Freeborn & Brian McManus, 2007. "Competition and Crowding-Out among Public, Non-Profit and For-Profit Organizations: Evidence from Outpatient Substance Abuse Treatment," Working Papers 52, Department of Economics, College of William and Mary.
    19. Chen, Hua & Ding, Yugang & Wang, Xiangnan & Yang, Yifei, 2023. "The effect of public insurance policy on the private insurance market: New evidence from a quasi-experiment in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 937-953.
    20. Aig Unuigbe, 2019. "Impact of medicaid policy changes on immigrant parents," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 395-417, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • L32 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Public Enterprises; Public-Private Enterprises
    • L21 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Business Objectives of the Firm
    • L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General

    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:bla:ecinqu:v:53:y:2015:i:1:p:508-521. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.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.