Controlling Health Care Costs through Limited Network Insurance Plans: Evidence from Massachusetts State Employees

We investigate the impact of limited network insurance plans in the context of the Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission (GIC), the insurance plan for state employees. Our quasi-experimental analysis examines the introduction of a major financial incentive to choose limited network plans that aff...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gruber, Jonathan (Contributor), McKnight, Robin (Author)
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics (Contributor)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2017-06-23T23:11:25Z.
Subjects:
Online Access:Get fulltext
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100 1 0 |a Gruber, Jonathan  |e author 
100 1 0 |a Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Gruber, Jonathan  |e contributor 
700 1 0 |a McKnight, Robin  |e author 
245 0 0 |a Controlling Health Care Costs through Limited Network Insurance Plans: Evidence from Massachusetts State Employees 
260 |c 2017-06-23T23:11:25Z. 
856 |z Get fulltext  |u http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/110246 
520 |a We investigate the impact of limited network insurance plans in the context of the Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission (GIC), the insurance plan for state employees. Our quasi-experimental analysis examines the introduction of a major financial incentive to choose limited network plans that affected a subset of GIC enrollees. We find that enrollees are very price sensitive in their decision to enroll in limited network plans. Those who switched spent almost 40 percent less on medical care. This reflects reductions in the quantity of services and prices paid per service. The spending reductions came from specialist and hospital care, while spending on primary care rose. (JEL G22, H75, I11, I13, J45) 
520 |a National Institute on Aging (Grant #P30AG012810 to the National Bureau of Economic Research) 
546 |a en_US 
655 7 |a Article 
773 |t American Economic Journal: Economic Policy