Full Citation

Title: Bankruptcy as Implicit Health Insurance

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2012

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI: 10.3386/w18105

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Abstract: This paper examines the implicit health insurance households receive from the ability to declare bankruptcy. Exploiting cross-state and within-state variation in asset exemption law, I show that uninsured households with greater seizable assets make higher out-of-pocket medical payments, conditional on the amount of care received. In turn, I find that households with greater wealth-at-risk are more likely to hold health insurance. The implicit insurance from bankruptcy distorts the insurance coverage decision. Using a microsimulation model, I calculate that the optimal Pigovian penalties are similar on average to the penalties under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Url: http://www.nber.org/papers/w18105.pdf

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Mahoney, Neale

Series Title: NBER Working Paper Series

Publication Number: 18105

Institution: National Bureau of Economic Research

Pages:

Publisher Location: Cambridge, MA

Data Collections: IPUMS CPS

Topics: Health, Other, Population Health and Health Systems

Countries: