Screening in Contract Design: Evidence from the ACA Health Insurance Exchanges
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
vol. 11,
no. 2, May 2019
(pp. 64-107)
Abstract
We study insurers' use of prescription drug formularies to screen consumers in the ACA Health Insurance exchanges. We begin by showing that exchange risk adjustment and reinsurance succeed in neutralizing selection incentives for most, but not all, consumer types. A minority of consumers, identifiable by demand for particular classes of prescription drugs, are predictably unprofitable. We then show that contract features relating to these drugs are distorted in a manner consistent with multidimensional screening. The empirical findings support a long theoretical literature examining how insurance contracts offered in equilibrium can fail to optimally trade off risk protection and moral hazard.Citation
Geruso, Michael, Timothy Layton, and Daniel Prinz. 2019. "Screening in Contract Design: Evidence from the ACA Health Insurance Exchanges." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 11 (2): 64-107. DOI: 10.1257/pol.20170014Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D82 Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
- G22 Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
- H51 National Government Expenditures and Health
- I13 Health Insurance, Public and Private
- I18 Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
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