Consequences of Government Provision and Regulation of Health Insurance
Contributors: McGuire, Thomas G.; Chandra, Amitabh; Newhouse, Joseph P.
Published: 2012
Language: eng
Description: The first two chapters of this dissertation concern the effect of public catastrophic insurance programs. In the first chapter, I show how these programs, which only protect against large health shocks, induce advantageous selection in private insurance. I use data on older Americans with Medicare insurance from the Health and Retirement Study to test if individuals with supplemental private health insurance are systematically lower-risk in states with public catastrophic insurance programs. I find that these programs decrease the average health risk for the privately insured by \$700 and that a one standard deviation increase in an individual's health risk decreases her probability of having private insurance by 4 percentage points.
Notes: Keywords: Insurance, mental health, moral hazard, prevention, Selection.

Thesis Ph.D. Harvard University 2012