IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwwpp/dp205.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Health Care Reform: Separating Insurance from Income Redistribution

Author

Listed:
  • Friedrich Breyer
  • Andreas Haufler

Abstract

Most systems of health care financing in EU member states currently include elements of income redistribution. The paper analyzes the effects of shifting this kind of redistribution to the tax system and argues that this reform could create two types of efficiency gains. On the expenditure side, it would facilitate the adoption of more incentive-compatible insurance contracts, for example through the introduction of copayment schemes. On the revenue side, income redistribution through the general tax system is likely to imply a shadow price of public funds that is lower than if redistribution is carried out through wage-based insurance contributions.

Suggested Citation

  • Friedrich Breyer & Andreas Haufler, 2000. "Health Care Reform: Separating Insurance from Income Redistribution," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 205, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
  • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp205
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.38507.de/dp205.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Koskela Erkki & Schöb Ronnie, 2002. "Why Governments Should Tax Mobile Capital in the Presence of Unemployment," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-22, January.
    2. Peter Sørensen, 1994. "From the global income tax to the dual income tax: Recent tax reforms in the Nordic countries," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 1(1), pages 57-79, February.
    3. Petretto, Alessandro, 1999. "Optimal social health insurance with supplementary private insurance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 727-745, December.
    4. Manning, Willard G, et al, 1987. "Health Insurance and the Demand for Medical Care: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 251-277, June.
    5. Sijbren Cnossen, 1999. "Taxing Capital Income in the Nordic Countries: A Model for the European Union?," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 56(1), pages 18-50, March.
    6. Helmuth Cremer & Pierre Pestieau, 1996. "Redistributive taxation and social insurance," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 3(3), pages 281-295, July.
    7. Hans-Werner Sinn, 1996. "Social insurance, incentives and risk taking," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 3(3), pages 259-280, July.
    8. Arnott, Richard & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1986. "Moral hazard and optimal commodity taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-24, February.
    9. Atkinson, A B & Sandmo, A, 1980. "Welfare Implications of the Taxation of Savings," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 90(359), pages 529-549, September.
    10. Blomqvist, Ake & Horn, Henrik, 1984. "Public health insurance and optimal income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 353-371, August.
    11. D. Fiaschi, 1996. "Fiscal policies and growth," Working Papers 261, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    12. Jacob Frenkel & Assaf Razin, 1996. "Fiscal Policies and Growth in the World Economy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 3, volume 1, number 0262561042, April.
    13. Atkinson, A. B. & Stiglitz, J. E., 1976. "The design of tax structure: Direct versus indirect taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 55-75.
    14. Deaton, Angus, 1979. "Optimally uniform commodity taxes," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 357-361.
    15. Wagstaff, Adam & van Doorslaer, Eddy & van der Burg, Hattem & Calonge, Samuel & Christiansen, Terkel & Citoni, Guido & Gerdtham, Ulf-G & Gerfin, Mike & Gross, Lorna & Hakinnen, Unto, 1999. "Equity in the finance of health care: some further international comparisons1," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 263-290, June.
    16. Cochrane, John H, 1995. "Time-Consistent Health Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 445-473, June.
    17. Mark V. Pauly, 1974. "Overinsurance and Public Provision of Insurance: The Roles of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 88(1), pages 44-62.
    18. Jean-Charles Rochet, 1991. "Incentives, Redistribution and Social Insurance," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 16(2), pages 143-165, December.
    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. Mathias Kifmann, 2005. "Health insurance in a democracy: Why is it public and why are premiums income related?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(3), pages 283-308, September.
    2. Raj Chetty & Emmanuel Saez, 2010. "Optimal Taxation and Social Insurance with Endogenous Private Insurance," NBER Chapters, in: Income Taxation, Trans-Atlantic Public Economics Seminar (TAPES), pages 85-114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Hindriks, Jean & De Donder, Philippe, 2003. "The politics of redistributive social insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(12), pages 2639-2660, December.
    4. Jung, Juergen & Tran, Chung, 2022. "Social health insurance: A quantitative exploration," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    5. BOADWAY, Robin & LEITE-MONTEIRO, Manuel & MARCHAND, Maurice & PESTIEAU, Pierre, 2001. "Social insurance and redistribution," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2001041, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    6. Maurice Marchand & Barbara Lipszyc, 1999. "Assurance-maladie : comment adapter les taux de remboursement aux dépenses individuelles de santé ?," CREPP Working Papers 9901, Centre de Recherche en Economie Publique et de la Population (CREPP) (Research Center on Public and Population Economics) HEC-Management School, University of Liège.
    7. Petretto, Alessandro, 1999. "Optimal social health insurance with supplementary private insurance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 727-745, December.
    8. Simona GRASSI, 2006. "On the characteristics of a mixed system of provision of a private good. An application to health care," Departmental Working Papers 2006-14, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    9. Jukka Pirttilä & Matti Tuomala, 2007. "Labour income uncertainty, taxation and public good provision," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(518), pages 567-582, March.
    10. De Donder, Philippe & Hindriks, Jean, 2007. "Equilibrium social insurance with policy-motivated parties," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 624-640, September.
    11. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 2018. "Pareto efficient taxation and expenditures: Pre- and re-distribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 101-119.
    12. Jacobs, Bas & Schindler, Dirk, 2012. "On the desirability of taxing capital income in optimal social insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(9-10), pages 853-868.
    13. DE DONDER, Philippe & HINDRIKS, Jean, 2003. "Policy-oriented parties and the choice between social and private insurance," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2003064, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    14. Robin Boadway & Manuel Leite‐Monteiro & Maurice Marchand & Pierre Pestieau, 2006. "Social Insurance and Redistribution with Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 108(2), pages 279-298, July.
    15. Darío Maldonado, 2006. "Social security, income taxation and poverty alleviation," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, June.
    16. Marc Fleurbaey & Giacomo Valletta, 2018. "Fair optimal tax with endogenous productivities," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 20(6), pages 849-873, December.
    17. Lipszyc, Barbara & Marchand, Maurice, 1999. "Assurance-maladie : comment adapter les taux de remboursement aux dépenses individuelles de santé?," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 75(1), pages 447-473, mars-juin.
    18. Billy Jack, 2003. "Redistributing to the sick: How should health expenditures be integrated into the tax system?," Working Papers gueconwpa~03-03-16, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    19. Janet Currie & Firouz Gahvari, 2008. "Transfers in Cash and In-Kind: Theory Meets the Data," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 333-383, June.
    20. VALLETTA, Giacomo, 2012. "Health, fairness and taxation," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2012016, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    health care finance; income redistribution;

    JEL classification:

    • H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    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:diw:diwwpp:dp205. 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: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diwbede.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.