IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/sochwe/v55y2020i1d10.1007_s00355-019-01227-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On discrimination in health insurance

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Boyer-Kassem

    (Université de Poitiers)

  • Sébastien Duchêne

    (CEE-M, Université de Montpellier, CNRS, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro)

Abstract

In many countries, private health insurance companies are allowed to vary their premiums based on some information on individuals. This practice is intuitively justified by the idea that people should pay the premium corresponding to their own known risk. However, one may consider this as a form of discrimination or wrongful differential treatment. Our goal in this paper is to assess whether profiling is ethically permissible in health insurance. We go beyond the existing literature in considering a wide range of parameters, be they genetic, non-genetic, or even non-medical such as age or place of living. Analyzing several ethical concerns, and tackling the difficult question of responsibility, we argue that profiling is generally unjust in health insurance.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Boyer-Kassem & Sébastien Duchêne, 2020. "On discrimination in health insurance," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(1), pages 5-23, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:55:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s00355-019-01227-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-019-01227-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00355-019-01227-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00355-019-01227-0?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Amy Finkelstein & Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2009. "Approaches to Estimating the Health State Dependence of the Utility Function," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 116-121, May.
    2. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Olivier L’Haridon, 2008. "A tractable method to measure utility and loss aversion under prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 245-266, June.
    3. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Corina Paraschiv, 2007. "Loss Aversion Under Prospect Theory: A Parameter-Free Measurement," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(10), pages 1659-1674, October.
    4. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Hilda Kammoun, 2013. "Do financial professionals behave according to prospect theory? An experimental study," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 411-429, March.
    5. Ingrid Robeyns, 2005. "The Capability Approach: a theoretical survey," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 93-117.
    6. Elena G. Bochukova & Ni Huang & Julia Keogh & Elana Henning & Carolin Purmann & Kasia Blaszczyk & Sadia Saeed & Julian Hamilton-Shield & Jill Clayton-Smith & Stephen O’Rahilly & Matthew E. Hurles & I., 2010. "Large, rare chromosomal deletions associated with severe early-onset obesity," Nature, Nature, vol. 463(7281), pages 666-670, February.
    7. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Thomas Boyer-Kassem & Sébastien Duchêne & Bart Engelen, 2017. "On Discrimination in Health Insurance," GREDEG Working Papers 2017-23, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France, revised Dec 2017.
    2. Thomas Boyer-Kassem & Sébastien Duchêne, 2018. "On discrimination in health insurance," Working Papers hal-01975451, HAL.
    3. Kpegli, Yao Thibaut & Corgnet, Brice & Zylbersztejn, Adam, 2023. "All at once! A comprehensive and tractable semi-parametric method to elicit prospect theory components," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    4. Yao Thibaut Kpegli, 2023. "Smoothing Spline Method for Measuring Prospect Theory Components," Working Papers 2303, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    5. Lefebvre, Mathieu & Vieider, Ferdinand M., 2014. "Risk taking of executives under different incentive contracts: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 27-36.
    6. Luís Santos-Pinto & Adrian Bruhin & José Mata & Thomas Åstebro, 2015. "Detecting heterogeneous risk attitudes with mixed gambles," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 79(4), pages 573-600, December.
    7. Julius Pahlke & Sebastian Strasser & Ferdinand Vieider, 2015. "Responsibility effects in decision making under risk," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 125-146, October.
    8. Sanjit Dhami & Narges Hajimoladarvish, 2020. "Mental Accounting, Loss Aversion, and Tax Evasion: Theory and Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 8606, CESifo.
    9. Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2012. "A genuine foundation for prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 97-113, October.
    10. Laura Hueber & Rene Schwaiger, 2021. "Debiasing Through Experience Sampling: The Case of Myopic Loss Aversion," Working Papers 2021-01, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    11. Alexander L. Brown & Taisuke Imai & Ferdinand M. Vieider & Colin F. Camerer, 2024. "Meta-analysis of Empirical Estimates of Loss Aversion," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 485-516, June.
    12. Víctor González-Jiménez, 2021. "Incentive contracts when agents distort probabilities," Vienna Economics Papers vie2101, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    13. Attema, Arthur E. & Brouwer, Werner B.F. & l’Haridon, Olivier & Pinto, Jose Luis, 2016. "An elicitation of utility for quality of life under prospect theory," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 121-134.
    14. Nathalie Etchart-Vincent & Olivier l’Haridon, 2011. "Monetary incentives in the loss domain and behavior toward risk: An experimental comparison of three reward schemes including real losses," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 61-83, February.
    15. Peter Brooks & Simon Peters & Horst Zank, 2014. "Risk behavior for gain, loss, and mixed prospects," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 77(2), pages 153-182, August.
    16. Simon Gächter & Eric J. Johnson & Andreas Herrmann, 2022. "Individual-level loss aversion in riskless and risky choices," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 92(3), pages 599-624, April.
    17. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Olivier L'Haridon & Corina Paraschiv, 2011. "Experienced vs. Described Uncertainty: Do We Need Two Prospect Theory Specifications?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(10), pages 1879-1895, October.
    18. Olivier Toubia & Eric Johnson & Theodoros Evgeniou & Philippe Delquié, 2013. "Dynamic Experiments for Estimating Preferences: An Adaptive Method of Eliciting Time and Risk Parameters," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(3), pages 613-640, June.
    19. González-Jiménez, Víctor, 2024. "Incentive design for reference-dependent preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 493-518.
    20. Attema, Arthur E. & Brouwer, Werner B.F. & l’Haridon, Olivier, 2013. "Prospect theory in the health domain: A quantitative assessment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1057-1065.

    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:spr:sochwe:v:55:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s00355-019-01227-0. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.