IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jemstr/v19y2010i3p545-574.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Does Cost‐Sharing Affect Drug Purchases? Insurance Regimes in the Private Market for Prescription Drugs

Author

Listed:
  • Avi Dor
  • William Encinosa

Abstract

Insurance for prescription drugs is characterized by two types of cost‐sharing: flat copayments and variable coinsurance. We develop a theoretical model to show that refill purchases of drugs are lower under coinsurance due to the consumer’s exposure to variation in drug prices. We test this empirically using claims data from eight large firms. Propensity score methods are used to create matched samples for the two insurance regimes. We find that when coinsurance and copayments have the same expected out‐of‐pocket of $9, at least 34% of patients under copayments would fully refill their medication over 90 days, compared to only 24% under coinsurance.

Suggested Citation

  • Avi Dor & William Encinosa, 2010. "How Does Cost‐Sharing Affect Drug Purchases? Insurance Regimes in the Private Market for Prescription Drugs," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 545-574, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:19:y:2010:i:3:p:545-574
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-9134.2010.00261.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9134.2010.00261.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1530-9134.2010.00261.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sara Ellison Fisher & Iain Cockburn & Zvi Griliches & Jerry Hausman, 1997. "Characteristics of Demand for Pharmaceutical Products: An Examination of Four Cephalosporins," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(3), pages 426-446, Autumn.
    2. Zhou Yang & Donna B. Gilleskie & Edward C. Norton, 2004. "Prescription Drugs, Medical Care, and Health Outcomes: A Model of Elderly Health Dynamics," NBER Working Papers 10964, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Manning, Willard G, et al, 1987. "Health Insurance and the Demand for Medical Care: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 251-277, June.
    4. William H. Crown & Ernst R. Berndt & Onur Baser & Stan N. Finkelstein & Whitney P. Witt & Jonathan Maguire & Kenan E. Haver, 2004. "Benefit Plan Design and Prescription Drug Utilization Among Asthmatics: Do Patient Copayments Matter?," NBER Chapters, in: Frontiers in Health Policy Research, Volume 7, pages 95-128, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Dehejia, Rajeev, 2005. "Practical propensity score matching: a reply to Smith and Todd," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 125(1-2), pages 355-364.
    6. Ching‐To Albert Ma & Michael H. Riordan, 2002. "Health Insurance, Moral Hazard, and Managed Care," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 81-107, March.
    7. Mark V. Pauly, 1974. "Overinsurance and Public Provision of Insurance: The Roles of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 88(1), pages 44-62.
    8. David B. Ridley, 2015. "Payments, Promotion, And The Purple Pill," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 86-103, January.
    9. Avi Dor, 2004. "Optimal Price Rules, Administered Prices and Suboptimal Prevention: Evidence from a Medicare Program," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 81-104, January.
    10. Chernew, Michael E. & Encinosa, William E. & Hirth, Richard A., 2000. "Optimal health insurance: the case of observable, severe illness," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 585-609, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. William Encinosa & Didem Bernard & Avi Dor, 2010. "Does Prescription Drug Adherence Reduce Hospitalizations and Costs?," NBER Working Papers 15691, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. David B. Ridley, 2015. "Payments, Promotion, And The Purple Pill," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 86-103, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Avi Dor & William Encinosa, 2004. "How Does Cost-Sharing Affect Drug Purchases? Insurance Regimes in the Private Market for Prescription Drugs," NBER Working Papers 10738, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Karolin Becker & Peter Zweifel, 2005. "Cost Sharing in Health Insurance: An Instrument for Risk Selection?," SOI - Working Papers 0513, Socioeconomic Institute - University of Zurich.
    3. Jonathan Gruber, 2008. "Covering the Uninsured in the U.S," NBER Working Papers 13758, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Michael Geruso & Timothy J. Layton & Jacob Wallace, 2023. "What Difference Does a Health Plan Make? Evidence from Random Plan Assignment in Medicaid," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 341-379, July.
    5. Melissa A. Thomasson, 2003. "The Importance of Group Coverage: How Tax Policy Shaped U.S. Health Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1373-1384, September.
    6. Blomqvist, Ake, 1997. "Optimal non-linear health insurance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 303-321, June.
    7. Raj Chetty & Amy Finkelstein, 2012. "Social Insurance: Connecting Theory to Data," NBER Working Papers 18433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Friedrich Breyer & Andreas Haufler, 2000. "Health Care Reform: Separating Insurance from Income Redistribution," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 7(4), pages 445-461, August.
    9. Francesca Barigozzi, 2004. "Reimbursing Preventive Care," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 29(2), pages 165-186, December.
    10. Martin Feldstein & Jonathan Gruber, 1995. "A Major Risk Approach to Health Insurance Reform," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 9, pages 103-130, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Su Liu & Deborah Chollet, "undated". "Price and Income Elasticity of the Demand for Health Insurance and Health Care Services: A Critical Review of the Literature," Mathematica Policy Research Reports dbf03ba11863430593b0b825f, Mathematica Policy Research.
    12. Jonathan Gruber, 2008. "Covering the Uninsured in the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(3), pages 571-606, September.
    13. Raj Chetty & Emmanuel Saez, 2010. "Optimal Taxation and Social Insurance with Endogenous Private Insurance," NBER Chapters, in: Income Taxation, Trans-Atlantic Public Economics Seminar (TAPES), pages 85-114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Kowalski, Amanda E., 2015. "Estimating the tradeoff between risk protection and moral hazard with a nonlinear budget set model of health insurance," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 122-135.
    15. Nicolas Ziebarth, 2014. "Assessing the effectiveness of health care cost containment measures: evidence from the market for rehabilitation care," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 41-67, March.
    16. Alma Cohen & Peter Siegelman, 2010. "Testing for Adverse Selection in Insurance Markets," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 77(1), pages 39-84, March.
    17. Hennig-Schmidt, Heike & Selten, Reinhard & Wiesen, Daniel, 2011. "How payment systems affect physicians' provision behaviour--An experimental investigation," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 637-646, July.
    18. Shiv Dixit, 2023. "Contract Enforcement and Preventive Healthcare: Theory and Evidence," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 1048-1094, December.
    19. van Kleef, R.C. & van de Ven, W.P.M.M. & van Vliet, R.C.J.A., 2009. "Shifted deductibles for high risks: More effective in reducing moral hazard than traditional deductibles," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 198-209, January.
    20. Arcidiacono, Peter & Ellickson, Paul B. & Landry, Peter & Ridley, David B., 2013. "Pharmaceutical followers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 538-553.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:19:y:2010:i:3:p:545-574. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/research/journals/JEMS/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.