Working Paper: NBER ID: w23718
Authors: Amy Finkelstein; Neale Mahoney; Matthew J. Notowidigdo
Abstract: Health insurance confers benefits to the previously uninsured, including improvements in health, reductions in out-of-pocket spending, and reduced medical debt. But because the nominally uninsured pay only a small share of their medical expenses, health insurance also provides substantial transfers to non-recipient parties who would otherwise bear the costs of providing uncompensated care to the uninsured. The prevalence of uncompensated care helps explain the limited take-up of heavily-subsidized public health insurance and the evidence that many recipients value formal health insurance at substantially less than the cost to insurers of providing that coverage. The distributional implications of public subsidies for health insurance depend critically on the ultimate economic incidence of the transfers they deliver to providers of uncompensated care.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: H22; H42; H51; I11; I13
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| health insurance (I13) | improved health (I14) |
| health insurance (I13) | increased access to necessary medical care (I14) |
| health insurance (I13) | reduced out-of-pocket spending (H51) |
| health insurance (I13) | reduced medical debt (G51) |
| health insurance (I13) | costs of providing uncompensated care (I13) |
| perceived value of insurance (G52) | limited take-up of subsidized public health insurance (I13) |