The research paper “Forward-looking Behavior in Health Insurance” by Caroline Chuard, Fabienne Loetscher, and Christian P. R. Schmid has been published in The European Journal of Health Economics. The study examines whether insured individuals adjust their healthcare behavior when they anticipate higher future healthcare costs.
The analysis focuses on a specific institutional feature of the Swiss healthcare system: the transition from child to adult insurance status, which is associated with a substantial increase in cost-sharing requirements. Using CSS claims data and a quasi-experimental research design, the authors show that young adults already adjust their behavior prior to this transition. In particular, young men increase their outpatient healthcare spending by around five percent in the year before the expected rise in out-of-pocket costs.
The findings highlight that insured individuals respond not only to current prices, but also take future financial incentives into account when making healthcare decisions. The study therefore provides important insights for the design of deductibles and cost-sharing mechanisms in healthcare systems. Moreover, the research demonstrates that dynamic incentives within insurance systems can lead to unintended behavioral responses that may affect the effectiveness of health policy measures.
The published paper can be accessed and downloaded here. A short summary can be found here.