The health insurance puzzle in Europe: the role of information
The health insurance puzzle in Europe: the role of information
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发表时间：
2009-04
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通讯作者：
C. Avitabile
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作者：
C. Avitabile
我使用欧洲健康、老龄化和退休调查的微观数据来研究获取健康信息的成本是否是八个欧洲国家50岁以上个人购买私人医院医疗保险的重要决定因素。我首先测试，在健康保险公司的风险评估的条件下，个人是否对保险决定因素有剩余的私人信息，而不是他们的风险类型。我的研究结果表明，个体特征与医院保险覆盖率呈正相关，与事后需要住院治疗的概率负相关，但保险公司没有观察到这一点。然而，只有在卫生保健系统质量较低的国家，这种相反的关联才与零关联显著不同。然后，我提供的证据表明，教育和认知能力作为替代质量的健康促进决定倾向采取自愿私人医院保险。
I use microdata from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe to study whether the cost of acquiring health information is an important determinant of the decision to buy private hospital health insurance for individuals aged 50+, in eight European countries. I first test whether, conditional on health insurance companies' risk assessments, individuals have residual private information on insurance determinants other than their risk type. My results show that there are individual characteristics, not observed by the insurers, that are positively correlated with hospital insurance coverage and negatively correlated with the ex post probability of requiring hospital treatment. However, this opposite association is significantly different from zero only in countries with low quality healthcare systems. I then provide evidence that education and cognitive ability act as substitutes for quality of health promotion in determining the propensity to take out a voluntary private hospital insurance.