IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/car/carecp/25-02.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the Over-Provision of Medical Insurance

Author

Abstract

This paper considers the general equilibrium implications of moral hazard in private health insurance markets. We show that the structure of standard contracts gives rise to a pecuniary externality whereby individuals ignore the impact of their insurance purchases on the future price of care. At the equilibrium, individuals over-insure against health expenditure risk, and over-spend on medical services while facing an excessive price of care. Reducing insurance coverage at the margin can mitigate the externality by exerting downward pressure on prices, thereby raising welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Afrasiab Mirza & Eric Stephens, 2024. "On the Over-Provision of Medical Insurance," Carleton Economic Papers 25-02, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:car:carecp:25-02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://carleton.ca/economics/wp-content/uploads/cewp25-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hart, Oliver D., 1975. "On the optimality of equilibrium when the market structure is incomplete," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 418-443, December.
    2. Jonathan Gruber & Helen Levy, 2009. "The Evolution of Medical Spending Risk," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(4), pages 25-48, Fall.
    3. Martin Gaynor & Deborah Haas-Wilson & William B. Vogt, 2000. "Are Invisible Hands Good Hands? Moral Hazard, Competition, and the Second-Best in Health Care Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(5), pages 992-1005, October.
    4. Liran Einav & Amy Finkelstein, 2018. "Moral Hazard in Health Insurance: What We Know and How We Know It," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 957-982.
    5. Bruce C. Greenwald & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1986. "Externalities in Economies with Imperfect Information and Incomplete Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(2), pages 229-264.
    6. Feldstein, Martin & Friedman, Bernard, 1977. "Tax subsidies, the rational demand for insurance and the health care crisis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 155-178, April.
    7. Amy Finkelstein, 2007. "The Aggregate Effects of Health Insurance: Evidence from the Introduction of Medicare," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 1-37.
    8. Pauly, Mark V. & Blavin, Fredric E., 2008. "Moral hazard in insurance, value-based cost sharing, and the benefits of blissful ignorance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1407-1417, December.
    9. Feldman, Roger & Dowd, Bryan, 1991. "A New Estimate of the Welfare Loss of Excess Health Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 297-301, March.
    10. Berthold U. Wigger & Markus Anlauf, 2007. "Do Consumers Purchase Too Much Health Insurance? The Role of Market Power in Health‐Care Markets," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 9(3), pages 547-561, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Nell, Martin & Richter, Andreas & Schiller, Jörg, 2009. "When prices hardly matter: Incomplete insurance contracts and markets for repair goods," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 343-354, April.
    2. Run Liang & Hao Wang, 2017. "Health insurance, market power, and social welfare," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 13(4), pages 427-442, December.
    3. Richard Dusansky & Çağatay Koç, 2016. "Individual Welfare When Consumers Can Shop For Health Insurance," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 1283-1290, April.
    4. Blomqvist, Ake, 1997. "Optimal non-linear health insurance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 303-321, June.
    5. Cremer, Helmuth & Lozachmeur, Jean-Marie, 2022. "Coinsurance vs. co-payments: Reimbursement rules for a monopolistic medical product with competitive health insurers," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    6. Bardey, David & Cremer, Helmuth & Lozachmeur, Jean-Marie, 2016. "The design of insurance coverage for medical products under imperfect competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 28-37.
    7. Anton Korinek, 2017. "Currency wars or efficient spillovers?," BIS Working Papers 615, Bank for International Settlements.
    8. Gersbach, Hans & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 2017. "Capital regulation and credit fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 113-124.
    9. Anton Korinek, 2016. "Currency Wars or Efficient Spillovers? A General Theory of International Policy Cooperation," NBER Working Papers 23004, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Mirza, Afrasiab & Stephens, Eric, 2022. "Securitization and aggregate investment efficiency," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    11. Silvia Helena Barcellos & Mireille Jacobson, 2015. "The Effects of Medicare on Medical Expenditure Risk and Financial Strain," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 41-70, November.
    12. Katherine Baicker & Sendhil Mullainathan & Joshua Schwartzstein, 2015. "Behavioral Hazard in Health Insurance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(4), pages 1623-1667.
    13. Kurlat, Pablo, 2021. "Investment externalities in models of fire sales," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 102-118.
    14. Nyman, John A., 1999. "The economics of moral hazard revisited," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 811-824, December.
    15. Gazi I Kara & S Mehmet Ozsoy & Itay Goldstein, 2020. "Bank Regulation under Fire Sale Externalities," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(6), pages 2554-2584.
    16. Andrey Aistov & Ekaterina Aleksandrova & Christopher J. Gerry, 2021. "Voluntary private health insurance, health-related behaviours and health outcomes: evidence from Russia," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 22(2), pages 281-309, March.
    17. Pierre Martinon & Pierre Picard & Anasuya Raj, 2017. "On the Design of Optimal Health Insurance Contracts under Ex Post Moral Hazard," Working Papers hal-01348551, HAL.
    18. Anderson, David M. & Hoagland, Alex & Zhu, Ed, 2024. "Medical bill shock and imperfect moral hazard," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 236(C).
    19. Kai Hao Yang & Alexander K. Zentefis, 2023. "Regulating Oligopolistic Competition," Papers 2302.03185, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.
    20. Black, Jane & de Meza, David, 1997. "Everyone may benefit from subsidising entry to risky occupations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 409-424, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D52 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Incomplete Markets
    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private
    • 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:car:carecp:25-02. 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: Court Lindsay (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.