Consumers Misunderstanding Of Health Insurance
Author(s)
- Sarah Ahmed
- John Beshears
- James Choi
- Joelle Friedman
- Jonathan Kolstad
- Suzanne Linck
- John A List
- George Loewenstein
- Brigitte Madrain
- Barbara McGill
- Stacey Sinkula
- Kevin Volpp
Full TextAbstract
We report results from two surveys of representative samples of Americans with private health insurance.
The first examines how well Americans understand, and believe they understand, traditional health
insurance coverage. The second examines whether those insured under a simplified all-copay insurance
plan will be more likely to engage in cost-reducing behaviors relative to those insured under a traditional
plan with deductibles and coinsurance, and measures consumer preferences between the two plans. The
surveys provide strong evidence that consumers do not understand traditional plans and would better
understand a simplified plan, but weaker evidence that a simplified plan would have strong appeal to
consumers or change their healthcare choices.