title: Consumers' misunderstanding of health insurance.
abstract: We report results from two surveys of representative samples of Americans with private health insurance. The first examines how well Americans understand, and believe they understand, traditional health insurance coverage. The second examines whether those insured under a simplified all-copay insurance plan will be more likely to engage in cost-reducing behaviors relative to those insured under a traditional plan with deductibles and coinsurance, and measures consumer preferences between the two plans. The surveys provide strong evidence that consumers do not understand traditional plans and would better understand a simplified plan, but weaker evidence that a simplified plan would have strong appeal to consumers or change their healthcare choices.
authors.affiliation: Carnegie Mellon University, Social and Decision Sciences, 5000 Forbes Avenue, 319 C Porter Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, United States. Electronic address: gl20@andrew.cmu.edu.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Loewenstein
authors.forename: Joelle Y
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Friedman
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: McGill
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ahmad
authors.forename: Suzanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Linck
authors.forename: Stacey
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sinkula
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Beshears
authors.forename: James J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kolstad
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Laibson
authors.forename: Brigitte C
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Madrian
authors.forename: John A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: List
authors.forename: Kevin G
authors.initials: KG
authors.lastname: Volpp
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D019458:Insurance Coverage; D007348:Insurance, Health; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States
keywords: Behavioral economics; D8; I1; Insurance; Simplification