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Bankruptcy, Medical Insurance, And A Law With Unintended Consequences

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  • Thomas G. Koch

Abstract

Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) in 1986, guaranteeing a standard of medical care to anyone who entered an emergency room. This guarantee made default a more reliable substitute for medical insurance. I construct a tractable structural model of the medical insurance market and find that repealing EMTALA would increase the fraction of the population with insurance while decreasing its price. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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  • Thomas G. Koch, 2014. "Bankruptcy, Medical Insurance, And A Law With Unintended Consequences," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(11), pages 1326-1339, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:23:y:2014:i:11:p:1326-1339
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.2985
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Maude Laberge & Kodjo‐Maawuegnigan Djiffa, 2023. "The effect of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion on consumer bankruptcies," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(4), pages 1344-1361, October.
    2. Thomas G. Koch, 2017. "The Shifting Shape of Risk: Endogenous Market Failure for Insurance," Risks, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-13, January.

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