Selection Incentives in the Dutch Basic Health Insurance: To What Extent Does End-of-Life Spending Contribute to Predictable Profits and Losses for Selective Groups?

Existing risk-equalization models in individual health insurance markets with premium-rate restrictions do not completely compensate insurers for predictable profits/losses, confronting insurers with risk selection incentives. To guide further improvement of risk-equalization models, it is important to obtain insight into the drivers of remaining predictable profits/losses. This article studies a specific potential driver: end-of-life spending (defined here as spending in the last 1–5 years of life). Using administrative ( N = 16.9 m) and health survey ( N = 384 k) data from the Netherlands, w... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Withagen-Koster, A. A.
van Kleef, R. C.
Eijkenaar, F.
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
Reihe/Periodikum: Medical Care Research and Review ; volume 79, issue 6, page 819-833 ; ISSN 1077-5587 1552-6801
Verlag/Hrsg.: SAGE Publications
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-29030856
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
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Link(s) : http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10775587221099731

Existing risk-equalization models in individual health insurance markets with premium-rate restrictions do not completely compensate insurers for predictable profits/losses, confronting insurers with risk selection incentives. To guide further improvement of risk-equalization models, it is important to obtain insight into the drivers of remaining predictable profits/losses. This article studies a specific potential driver: end-of-life spending (defined here as spending in the last 1–5 years of life). Using administrative ( N = 16.9 m) and health survey ( N = 384 k) data from the Netherlands, we examine the extent to which end-of-life spending contributes to predictable profits/losses for selective groups. We do so by simulating the predictable profits/losses for these groups with and without end-of-life spending while correcting for the overall spending difference between these two situations. Our main finding is that—even under a sophisticated risk-equalization model—end-of-life spending can contribute to predictable losses for specific chronic conditions.