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To wait or to pay for medical treatment? Restraining ex-post moral hazard in health insurance

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  • Felder, Stefan

Abstract

We explore the hierarchy of two instruments, waiting time and coinsurance for medical treatment, for optimally solving the tradeoff between the economic gains from risk sharing and the losses from moral hazard. We show that the optimal waiting time is zero, given that the coinsurance rate is optimally set.

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  • Felder, Stefan, 2008. "To wait or to pay for medical treatment? Restraining ex-post moral hazard in health insurance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1418-1422, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:27:y:2008:i:6:p:1418-1422
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Hoel, Michael & Saether, Erik Magnus, 2003. "Public health care with waiting time: the role of supplementary private health care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 599-616, July.
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    9. Zeckhauser, Richard, 1970. "Medical insurance: A case study of the tradeoff between risk spreading and appropriate incentives," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 10-26, March.
    10. Cullis, John G. & Jones, Philip R. & Propper, Carol, 2000. "Waiting lists and medical treatment: Analysis and policies," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 23, pages 1201-1249, Elsevier.
    11. Lindsay, Cotton M & Feigenbaum, Bernard, 1984. "Rationing by Waiting Lists," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 404-417, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2017. "The pros and cons of sick pay schemes: Testing for contagious presenteeism and noncontagious absenteeism behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 14-33.
    2. Stefan Pichler & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2015. "The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: Testing for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1509, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    3. Vincenzo Rebba & Dino Rizzi, 2011. "Waiting Times and Cost Sharing for a Public Health Care Service with a Private Alternative: A Multi-agent Approach," Working Papers 2011_18, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    4. Werbeck, Anna & Wübker, Ansgar & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2021. "Cream skimming by health care providers and inequality in health care access: Evidence from a randomized field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 1325-1350.
    5. Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2015. "The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: A Method to Test for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior," IZA Discussion Papers 8850, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Jianmei Zhao & Hai Zhong, 2015. "Medical expenditure in urban China: a quantile regression analysis," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 387-406, December.
    7. Salvi, Irene & Cordier, Johannes & Kuklinski, David & Vogel, Justus & Geissler, Alexander, 2023. "Price sensitivity and demand for healthcare services: Investigating demand-side financial incentives using anonymised claims data from Switzerland," Working Paper Series in Health Economics, Management and Policy 2023-06, University of St.Gallen, School of Medicine, Chair of Health Economics, Policy and Management.
    8. Mark Braverman & Jing Chen & Sampath Kannan, 2016. "Optimal Provision-After-Wait in Healthcare," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 41(1), pages 352-376, February.

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