Kanika Kapur

..Our results show that retiree health insurance increases retirement for all groups except single men. We find suggestive evidence that the role of health insurance for women hinges on their husbands' labor force status...

..We find that premium subsidies for individual insurance would increase family coverage; however, their effect likely would be small relative to their implementation cost...

..The pathway variables also were associated with expenditures. Accounting for the pathways through which SES affects expenditures narrowed the effect of SES on expenditures; however, the change in the estimates was very small...

..To evaluate the role of health plan benefit design and price on consumers' decisions to purchase health insurance in the nongroup market and their choice of plan...

..Finally, we show that people prefer more-generous benefits and that it is difficult to induce people in poor health to enroll in high-deductible health plans...

..We find that economic factors and coverage characteristics are important in the decision to disenroll, but that perceptions about insurance and the health care system also affect this decision...

..Little is known about how consumers will view these new designs. Our objective is to examine consumer preferences for selected benefit designs...

..We do not find evidence that subsidies to individual insurance will produce an unraveling of the employer-based health insurance system...

..The findings suggest that public sources of payment for medical care services, especially public supplementary coverage have helped to eliminate racial and ethnic gaps in expenditures...

..Our descriptive analysis suggests that it might be difficult to design policies that target those who would otherwise be uninsured and that large subsidies might be needed to help laid-off workers...

..However, care is falling short on several key aspects, and POAG may be undertreated relative to standards for IOP control established in recent clinical trials...

..Thus, premium assistance programs are difficult to target effectively, and other programs are necessary to reach the majority of uninsured children...

..The early effects of CDHC on quality are mixed, with evidence of both appropriate and inappropriate changes in care use. Greater information about prices, quality, and treatment choices will be critical if CDHC is to achieve its goals...

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..Whether this trend can continue in the face of higher health costs is unclear...

..Few practices bear substantial financial risk, and nearly all practices use quality management tools that could help to improve the quality of care...