Price-Linked Subsidies and Imperfect Competition in Health Insurance
Policymakers subsidizing health insurance often face uncertainty about future market prices. We study the implications of one policy response: linking subsidies to prices, to target a given post-subsidy premium. We show that these price-linked subsidies weaken competition, raising prices for the government and/or consumers. However, price-linking also ties subsidies to health care cost shocks, which may be desirable. Evaluating this tradeoffs empirically using a model estimated with Massachusetts insurance exchange data, we find that price-linking increases prices 1-6%, and much more in less competitive markets. For cost uncertainty reasonable in a mature market, these losses outweigh the benefits of price-linking.
Published Versions
Sonia Jaffe & Mark Shepard, 2020. "Price-Linked Subsidies and Imperfect Competition in Health Insurance," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, vol 12(3), pages 279-311. citation courtesy of 
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