How Health Plan Enrollees Value Prices Relative to Supplemental Benefits and Service Quality

Bunnings, C,;, Hendrik Schmitz, Harald Tauchmann and Nicolas Ziebarth (nicolas.ziebarth@zew.de)

Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers from HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York

Abstract: This paper empirically assesses the relative role of health plan prices, service quality and optional benefits in the decision to choose a health plan. We link representative German SOEP panel data from 2007 to 2010 to (i) health plan service quality indicators, (ii) measures of voluntary benefit provision on top of federally mandated benefits, and (iii) health plan prices for almost all German health plans. Mixed logit models incorporatea total of 1,700 health plan choices with more than 50 choice sets for each individual. The findings suggest that, compared to prices, health plan service quality and supplemental benefits play a minor role in making a health plan choice.

Keywords: service quality; non-essential benefits; prices; health plan switching; German sickness funds; SOEP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 H51 I11 I13 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hea, nep-ias and nep-pbe
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Working Paper: How Health Plan Enrollees Value Prices Relative to Supplemental Benefits and Service Quality (2015)
Working Paper: How health plan enrollees value prices relative to supplemental benefits and service quality (2015)
Working Paper: How Health Plan Enrollees Value Prices Relative to Supplemental Benefits and Service Quality (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:yor:hectdg:15/02

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