Many proposed health insurance reforms would establish a federal minimum benefit standard--a baseline set of benefits to ensure that people have adequate coverage and financial protection when they purchase insurance. Currently, benefit mandates are set at the state level; these vary greatly across states and generally target specific areas rather than set an overall standard for what qualifies...

This article shows through a simple model that there is a monotonic relationship between the competitiveness of the product market and firms’ demand for insurance. The more competitive the product market is, the more likely firms competing in the market will acquire insurance or purchase full coverage. This holds true no matter whether firms exhibit risk aversion or not in their preferences. In...

This paper studies the implications of a societal aversion to inequality for the optimal design of a public health care system. Inequality aversion is introduced by postulating a strictly concave ex post social welfare function. Illnesses are characterized by three factors: the agent’s health with treatment, the agent’s health without treatment, and the cost of treatment. It is shown that the o...

This paper develops an empirical strategy to estimate whether subsidies to private medical insurance are self-financing in countries where public and private insurance coexist and the latter covers the same treatments as the former. We construct a simulation routine based on a micro-econometric discrete choice model that allows us to evaluate the impact of premium changes on the utilization of ...

■ To avoid insolvency, insurers must charge adequate premiums to pay policyholder claims. ■ Risk classification groups together individuals with similar levels of risk and expected costs, and permits insurers to charge an adequate premium. ■ If individuals purchase insurance on the basis o f health information that is unknown to the insurer, adverse selection results. Adverse selection means th...

Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, authorizes the implementation of the Medicare-Approved Drug Discount Card Program. This program is designed to help people in Medicare with the cost of prescription drugs. In the past several years as prescription drugs have increased, a number of Medicare beneficiaries have begun to use drug discount cards for outof-pocket expenditures. In the l...

Background and Aim:  The health financing system is the process of collecting, pooling and managing financial resources to purchase health services. Sustainable financing of the Iranian health system is crucial for achieving universal health coverage. The purpose of this study was to identify strategies for sustainable financing of the Iranian health system. Materials and Methods:  This study ...

Abstract We identify major drivers of the demand for credit insurance, using a worldwide survey among banking executives in structured commodity trade finance business. Our results show that bank’s propensity to purchase insurance increases its experience and expertise with product, impact coverage on balance sheet, risk underlying transaction, as well intensity broker relationships. Other fact...

Regulatory authorities demand insurance companies to control the risks by imposing stringent risk management policies. This article investigates the insurance company’s optimal risk management strategy subject to regulator’s risk measure constraints. We first design the optimal reinsurance contracts under different tail risk measures. Then we analyze the impact of the regulators’ requirements o...

This issue brief explores the use of premium assistance in publicly financed health insurance coverage programs. In the context of Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), premium assistance entails using federal and state funds to subsidize the premiums for the purchase of private insurance coverage for eligible individuals. This paper considers the evolution of prem...