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Health insurance competition: the effect of group contracts

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  • Boone, Jan
  • Douven, Rudy
  • ,
  • Mosca, Ilaria

Abstract

In countries like the US and the Netherlands health insurance is provided by private firms. These private firms can offer both individual and group contracts. The strategic and welfare implications of such group contracts are not well understood. Using a Dutch data set of about 700 group health insurance contracts over the period 2007-2008, we estimate a model to determine which factors explain the price of group contracts. We find that groups that are located close to an insurers' home turf pay a higher premium than other groups. This finding is not consistent with the bargaining argument in the literature as it implies that concentrated groups close to an insurer's home turf should get (if any) a larger discount than other groups. A simple Hotelling model, however, does explain our empirical results.

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  • Boone, Jan & Douven, Rudy & , & Mosca, Ilaria, 2010. "Health insurance competition: the effect of group contracts," CEPR Discussion Papers 7871, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7871
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Rudy Douven & Remco Mocking & Ilaria Mosca, 2012. "The Effect of Physician Fees and Density Differences on Regional Variation in Hospital Treatments," CPB Discussion Paper 208, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health insurance; Health-plan choice; Managed competition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

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