Health Insurance Enrollment Decisions: Understanding the Role of Preferences for Coverage

Alan Monheit, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
Jessica Vistnes, Agency for Health Care Policy and Research

To date few efforts have been made to explore the role of preferences for health insurance on decisions to obtain private or public coverage. This project will examine the prevalence of weak preferences for coverage among the non-elderly US population, its change over the last decade, and the association between preferences for coverage and an individual's health insurance status, demographic characteristics, health and economic status, and health care utilization. We will consider how the inclusion of reported preferences for coverage, in place of typical demographic proxies for tastes, affect econometric estimates of decisions to participate in private and public health insurance. The results of this modeling will be used to estimate the subsidy required to offset the disutility borne by persons with weak preferences were they to participate in private coverage. The analyses will also identify those with weak preferences among the uninsured for whom outreach and educational efforts may prove effective. Preference measures will be used to assess the extent of labor market sorting between job with and without health insurance.