Bankruptcy as Implicit Health Insurance

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mahoney, Neale
• 署名单位: University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20131408
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 710-746
• 关键词: personal bankruptcy; exemption; medicaid; care

摘要

This paper examines the implicit health insurance that households receive from the ability to declare bankruptcy. Exploiting multiple sources of variation in asset exemption law, I show that uninsured households with a greater financial cost of bankruptcy make higher out-of-pocket medical payments, conditional on the amount of care received. In turn, I find that households with greater wealth at risk are more likely to hold health insurance. The implicit insurance from bankruptcy distorts the insurance coverage decision. Using a microsimulation model, I calculate that the optimal Pigovian penalties are three-quarters as large as the average penalties under the Affordable Care Act.