Duke 2008 | ASHE | Equity and Efficiency in Health and Healthcare

The growth of Consumer Directed Health Plans (CDHPs) since 2001 has prompted calls on the validity that consumers can 1) act as directed consumers in a market with imperfect information and knowledge and 2) gain additional welfare, at the margin, from healthcare consumerism compared to more traditional health insurance designs. The three proposed papers address these hypotheses with some of the most comprehensive data gathered to date on this topic. The first paper, by Parente and Town is based on over five years of claims data from multiple employers offering consumer plans, both as a choice and as a full replacement for their traditional health plans. The second paper by Polsky and Mallya looks at whether CDHPs have a different impact on preventive care that traditional health plans. The final paper by LoSasso, Manning and Helmchen uses data from large set of small business contracts that implemented CDHPs to gauge whether consumers changed their cost and utilization patterns. From this, one can gauge elasticity responses to deductible, coinsurance and account parameters in the CDHP benefit design.