Mortality Effects and Choice Across Private Health Insurance Plans.

ABSTRACT: Competition in health insurance markets may fail to improve health outcomes if consumers are not able to identify high quality plans. We develop and apply a novel instrumental variables framework to quantify the variation in causal mortality effects across plans and how much consumers attend to this variation. We first document large differences in the observed mortality rates of Medicare Advantage plans within local markets. We then show that when plans with high (low) mortality rates exit these markets, enrollees tend to switch to more typical plans and subsequently experience lower (higher) mortality. We derive and validate a novel "fallback condition" governing the subsequent choices of those affected by plan exits. When the fallback condition is satisfied, plan terminations can be use

SUBMITTER: Abaluck J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8409169 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature