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Full-Text Articles in Business
Can Consumers Make Affordable Care Affordable? The Value Of Choice Architecture, Eric J. Johnson, Ran Hassin, Tom Baker, Allison T. Bajger, Galen Treuer
Can Consumers Make Affordable Care Affordable? The Value Of Choice Architecture, Eric J. Johnson, Ran Hassin, Tom Baker, Allison T. Bajger, Galen Treuer
All Faculty Scholarship
Starting this October, tens of millions will be choosing health coverage on a state or federal health insurance exchange as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We examine how well people make these choices, how well they think they do, and what can be done to improve these choices. We conducted 6 experiments asking people to choose the most cost-effective policy using websites modeled on current exchanges. Our results suggest there is significant room for improvement. Without interventions, respondents perform at near chance levels and show a significant bias, overweighting out-of-pocket expenses and deductibles. Financial incentives do …
“You Want Insurance With That?” Using Behavioral Economics To Protect Consumers From Add-On Insurance Products, Tom Baker, Peter Siegelman
“You Want Insurance With That?” Using Behavioral Economics To Protect Consumers From Add-On Insurance Products, Tom Baker, Peter Siegelman
All Faculty Scholarship
Persistently high profits on “insurance” for small value losses sold as an add-on to other products or services (such as extended warranties sold with consumer electronics, loss damage waivers sold with a car rental, and credit life insurance sold with a loan) pose a twofold challenge to the standard economic analysis of insurance. First, expected utility theory teaches that people should not buy insurance for small value losses. Second, the market should not in the long run permit sellers to charge prices that greatly exceed the cost of providing the insurance. Combining the insights of the Gabaix and Laibson shrouded …