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on Insurance Economics |
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Issue of 2007‒03‒31
eight papers chosen by Soumitra K Mallick Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Bussiness Management |
| By: | Jairo Restrepo; Andrés Zambrano; Mauricio Velez; Manuel Ramirez |
| Abstract: | The Colombian reform to the health system (Law 100 of 1993) established, as strategy to facilitate the access, the universality of a health insurance that is acquired by means of the quotation in the contributive regime or by means of the gratuitous affiliation to the subsidized regime, in order to cover all the population with a unique plan of benefits that includes services in all levels of complexity. In this paper we intend to cover the main streamlined facts of the reform as far as coverage and access of the insurance, by means of logit models, the determinants of the enrollment and the access are considered, using data from the Living Standards Surveys of 1997 and 2003. It stands out that the coverage rose from 20% of the population in 1993 to 60% in 2003, although it seems very difficult to reach the universality; the structure and evolution of the coverage show that both regimes complement each other, while the contributive one has greater presence in the cities and among the population with formal employment, the subsidized one has greater weight among the rural population and in those with low levels of income; on the other hand, the insurance has advantages for the subsidized population, with a greater probability for use of the services, although the plan offers less benefits than the contributive one there are some barriers for the access. |
| Date: | 2007–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:001070:002886&r=ias |
| By: | John Schmitt |
| Abstract: | This paper is a brief analysis of the "Fair Share for Health Care" pay-or-play legislation proposal in the state of New York. The legislation would require most large firms (defined as those with 100 or more employees) to pay a $3 per hour tax on all employees; firms could avoid the tax by paying at least as much for health insurance. The proposal follows a recent law aimed at much larger firms (those with 10,000 or more employees) in Maryland. |
| Date: | 2006–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:epo:papers:2006-9&r=ias |
| By: | Janine Leschke (European Trade Union Institute ,ETUI-REHS) |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the question to what extent social protection systems in different European countries do succeed in coping with the risks arising from non-standard forms of employment. Focusing on the examples of part-time and temporary employment, the paper will examine ex-clusionary transitions and the access to unemployment insurance benefits of workers concerned by these forms of employment. The European Community Household Panel Data (ECHP) will be used. The general hypothesis is that the adaptability of unemployment insurance systems varies between welfare regimes. Therefore, four countries will be compared: Denmark, Ger-many, Spain and the United Kingdom. |
| Keywords: | part-time employment, temporary employment, unemployment insurance, comparative analysis |
| JEL: | C23 C41 I38 J16 J65 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dul:wpaper:07-05rs&r=ias |
| By: | Dean Baker |
| Abstract: | Projected costs for Medicare Part D have been revised downward, causing some analysts to claim that the program has proven itself a success. This report explores the factors behind the lower cost projections and reaches far different conclusions. It finds two main reasons: 1) a slowdown in the rate of growth in drug prices that preceded the introduction of the benefit; and 2) fewer people are expected to enroll in the program. The report recommends changes to the program that could save $30 billion a year. |
| JEL: | I18 L12 H51 H21 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:epo:papers:2007-8&r=ias |
| By: | Ramón Castaño; Andrés Zambrano |
| Abstract: | Financial protection is one of the objectives of health systems, which protects poor households from falling into poverty as a result of health care related expenses. Expanding prepayment schemes to the poor is difficult in developing countries because labor is largely informal. Providing health care free-at-point-of-service does not adequately target spending on the poorest, but occupation- or community-based schemes have also inherent limitations to achieve universal coverage. Colombia adopted a government-subsidized health insurance scheme (SHI) strategy. The political debate about increasing SHI enrollment needs evidence about the effectiveness of this scheme regarding financial protection. This study runs a four-part model to estimate the effect of SHI on out-of-pocket expenses by the poor that are currently uninsured, if they were enrolled in the SHI. The results show a 43% and 50% reduction in expenses at Bogotá and national level respectively, which confirms the effectiveness of SHI as a financial protection tool. |
| Date: | 2007–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:001070:002884&r=ias |
| By: | Enchuan Shao; Pedro Silos |
| Abstract: | This paper is concerned with the business cycle dynamics in search-and-matching models of the labor market when agents are ex post heterogeneous. We focus on wealth heterogeneity that comes as a result of imperfect opportunities to insure against idiosyncratic risk. We show that this heterogeneity implies wage rigidity relative to a complete insurance economy. The fraction of wealth-poor agents prevents real wages from falling too much in recessions since small decreases in income imply large losses in utility. Analogously, wages rise less in expansions compared with the standard model because small increases are enough for poor workers to accept job offers. This mechanism reduces the volatility of wages and increases the volatility of vacancies and unemployment. This channel can be relevant if the lack of insurance is large enough so that the fraction of agents close to the borrowing constraint is significant. However, discipline in the parameterization implies an earnings variance and persistence in the unemployment state that result in a large degree of self-insurance. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedawp:2007-05&r=ias |
| By: | Ljungqvist, Lars; Sargent, Thomas J |
| Abstract: | Adding generous government supplied benefits to Prescott's (2002) model with employment lotteries and private consumption insurance causes employment to implode and prevents the model from matching outcomes observed in Europe. To understand the role of a 'not-so-well-known aggregation theory' that Prescott uses to rationalize the high labour supply elasticity that underlies his finding that higher taxes on labour have depressed Europe relative to the US, this paper compares aggregate outcomes for economies with two arrangements for coping with indivisible labour: (1) employment lotteries plus complete consumption insurance, and (2) individual consumption smoothing via borrowing and lending at a risk-free interest rate. The two arrangements support equivalent outcomes when human capital is not present; when it is present, allocations differ because households' reliance on personal savings in the incomplete markets model constrains the 'career choices' that are implicit in their human capital acquisition plans relative to those that can be supported by lotteries and consumption insurance in the complete markets model. Nevertheless, the responses of aggregate outcomes to changes in tax rates are quantitatively similar across the two market structures. Thus, under both aggregation theories, the high disutility that Prescott assigns to labour is an impediment to explaining European non-employment and benefits levels. Moreover, while the identities of the non-employed under Prescott's tax hypothesis differ between the two aggregation theories, they all seem counterfactual. |
| Keywords: | aggregation theories; employment lotteries; human capital; indivisible labour; labour supply elasticity; labour taxation; social and private insurance |
| JEL: | E24 E62 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6196&r=ias |
| By: | Dean Baker |
| Abstract: | The Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) was passed in 2003 to reform the Medicare system, but the result was an inefficient set of rules and regulations. This report projects the savings from a drug benefit program that was designed with efficiency in mind. |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:epo:papers:2006-1&r=ias |