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Marketplace Plan Payment Options for Dealing with High-Cost Enrollees

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  • Timothy J. Layton
  • Thomas G. McGuire

Abstract

Two of the three elements of the ACA’s “premium stabilization program,” reinsurance and risk corridors, are set to expire in 2017, leaving risk adjustment alone to protect plans against risk of high-cost cases. This paper considers potential modifications of the HHS risk adjustment methodology to maintain plan protection against risk from high-cost cases within the current regulatory framework. We show analytically that modifications of the transfer formula and of the risk adjustment model itself are mathematically equivalent to a conventional actuarially fair reinsurance policy. Furthermore, closely related modifications of the transfer formula or the risk adjustment model can improve on conventional reinsurance by figuring transfers or estimating risk adjustment model weights recognizing the presence of a reinsurance function. In the empirical section, we estimate risk adjustment models with an updated and selected version of the data used to calibrate the federal payment models, and show, using simulation methods, that proposed modifications improve fit at the person level and protect small insurers against high-cost risk better than conventional reinsurance. We simulate various “attachment points” for the reinsurance equivalent policies and quantify the tradeoffs of higher and lower attachment points.

Suggested Citation

  • Timothy J. Layton & Thomas G. McGuire, 2016. "Marketplace Plan Payment Options for Dealing with High-Cost Enrollees," NBER Working Papers 22519, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22519
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Timothy J. Layton & Thomas G. McGuire & Anna D. Sinaiko, 2016. "Risk Corridors and Reinsurance in Health Insurance Marketplaces: Insurance for Insurers," American Journal of Health Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(1), pages 66-95, Winter.
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    Cited by:

    1. Thomas G. McGuire & Sonja Schillo & Richard C. van Kleef, 2018. "Reinsurance, Repayments, and Risk Adjustment in Individual Health Insurance: Germany, The Netherlands and the U.S. Marketplaces," NBER Working Papers 25374, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Timothy Layton & Ellen J. Montz & Mark Shepard, 2017. "Health Plan Payment in U.S. Marketplaces: Regulated Competition with a Weak Mandate," NBER Working Papers 23444, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Thomas G. McGuire & Sonja Schillo & Richard C. Kleef, 2021. "Very high and low residual spenders in private health insurance markets: Germany, The Netherlands and the U.S. Marketplaces," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 22(1), pages 35-50, February.
    4. Maria Polyakova & Stephen P. Ryan, 2019. "Subsidy Targeting with Market Power," NBER Working Papers 26367, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Thomas G. McGuire & Anna L. Zink & Sherri Rose, 2020. "Simplifying and Improving the Performance of Risk Adjustment Systems," NBER Working Papers 26736, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

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