Genetic testing and repulsion from chance

Michael Hoel (), Tore Nilssen (), Jon Vislie and Tor Iversen

No 2002:10, HERO Online Working Paper Series from University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme

Abstract: A central theme in the international debate on genetic testing concerns the extent to which insurance companies should be allowed to use genetic information in their design of insurance contracts. This issue is analysed within a model with the following important feature: A person's well-being depends on the perceived probability of becoming ill in the future in a way that varies among individuals.

The authors show that both tested high-risks and untested individuals are equally well off whether or not test results can be used by insurers. Individuals who test for being low-risks, on the other hand, are made worse off by not being able to verify this to insurers. This implies that verifiability dominates non-verifiability in an ex-ante sense.

Keywords: Health insurance; isurance contracts; genetic testing; genetic information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 I11 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2009-06-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta, nep-hea and nep-ias
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
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http://www.hero.uio.no/publicat/2002/HERO2002_10.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Genetic Testing and Repulsion from Chance (2004)
Working Paper: Genetic testing and repulsion from chance (2003)
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