Volume 24, Number 1 (Winter) 1989
Feldman, Roger, Michael Finch, Bryan Dowd, and Steven Cassou. 1989. "The Demand for Employment-Based Health Insurance Plans." Journal of Human Resources 24(1):115-142.
We estimate the demand for health plans by employees in 17 Minneapolis firms. The data set has approximately 900 employees who chose a single-coverage health plan and 2,100 employees who chose family coverage. A nested logit model is empirically shown to be the right approach for modeling health plan choice, with freedom to choose your own doctor being the variable that distinguishes health plan nests. our estimates show that employees are very sensitive to the out-of-pocket premium for each plan, controlling for other plan characteristics. These results are important both for public policy and for employers who offer multiple health plans.
The authors are affiliated with the Division of Health Services Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Feldman and Cassou are also in the Department of Economics. This research was supported by Grant No. HS05298 from the National Center for Health Services Research and Health Care Technology Assessment. The authors acknowledge the advice of four anonymous referees.
© 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
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