In developed countries, social security covers workers and their dependents against old age, unemployment, health, and other risks. In developing countries, formal-sector workers have access to social insurance, and the very poor have some access to social assistance and health services, but large population groups are not covered. Extending social security coverage would require delinking soci...

We look at the consequences of allowing social insurance to be voluntary when its coverage can be supplemented in the market. Social insurance pools risks and social contributions are increasing in income, while the market is affected by adverse selection. We claim that making social insurance voluntary does not lead to its collapse since there are always individuals either benefiting from redi...

In 1935, when the Social Security Act was passed, little was known about the economic position of the Nation’s older men and women. Today, through surveys of insurance bene$ciaries conducted by the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, much more is known. The evaluation of the economic situation of aged beneficiaries that is presented in the following pages is based on the national benefic...

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...

Individuals are in‡uenced by the types of people with whom they associate and who form their social networks. These social interactions may a¤ect individual and social norms. We develop a direct test of this using Dutch survey data on how respondents evaluate work disability of hypothetical people with some work related health problem (vignettes). We analyze how the thresholds respondents use t...

Due to the rapid progress in medical technology social insurance systems will soon no longer be able to grant health services without limits but must employ non-price rationing devices. This raises the question how these limits will be determined. Here we consider a direct democracy where the size of the social health insurance plan is determined in a popular referendum using simple majority ru...

Social Health Insurance has been used as an approach to increase efficiency of healthcare system and consumer satisfaction in provision of healthcare services. Many developed countries have successfully planned and implemented insurance models which provide almost universal coverage and addresses issues of equity. The phenomenon is established however, developing countries especially Eastern Me...