title: Putting Health Back Into Health Insurance Choice.
abstract: What are the barriers to voluntary take-up of high-deductible plans? We address this question using a large-scale employer survey conducted after an open-enrollment period in which a new high-deductible plan was first introduced. Only 3% of the employees chose this plan, despite the respondents' recognition of its financial advantages. Employees who believed that the high-deductible plan provided access to top physicians in the area were three times more likely to choose it than employees who did not share this belief. A framed field experiment using a similar choice menu showed that displaying additional financial information did not increase high-deductible plan take-up. However, when plans were presented as identical except for the deductible, respondents were highly likely to choose the high-deductible plan, especially in a two-way choice. These results suggest that informing plan choosers about high-deductible plans' health access provisions may affect choice more strongly than focusing on their financial advantages.
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA apav@sas.upenn.edu.
authors.forename: Pavel
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Atanasov
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Baker
mesh_terms: D002755:Choice Behavior; D003669:Deductibles and Coinsurance / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006264:Health Benefit Plans, Employee / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D057240:Patient Preference / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000191:economics
keywords: consumer issues; employer health plans; health insurance choice; health spending