Title: Sorting on Plan Design: Theory and Evidence from the Affordable Care Act

Speaker: Chenyuan Liu,Tsinghua University

Time: November 10th, 2020, 13:30-15:00

Venue: 106B, Zhonghui Building

About the speaker:

Dr. Chenyuan Liu is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University. She obtained a Ph.D. in Business from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 2020. Her research interests lie in the fields of health economics and empirical industrial organization. Her current research focuses on studying the health care market, including the design of health insurance plans and anti-trust issues in the hospital industry.

Abstract:

Should health insurance plans be standardized? This paper explores both theoretically and empirically the implications of allowing multiple cost-sharing attributes for the functioning of health insurance markets. I develop a model of insurance choice with contracts varying in both the coverage level and the variance of uninsured losses. The model predicts that under asymmetric information, individuals with different health risks will demand plans with different designs, generating a force for plan variation even in markets that regulate the average level of coverage. I test for this type of selection on plan design in the ACA Exchange and find that a) cost-sharing variations within coverage tiers create significant differences in the risk protection to consumers and b) consumers sort differentially by health status in ways consistent with the theoretical predictions. I show that the consequences of regulating away design variation within coverage tiers depend on the extent of risk adjustment regulations and consumer confusion in the market.