Health Insurance Increases Financial Risk

时间：2022年9月23日（周五）9:00-10:30

地点：北京大学承泽园校区 249教室

主持人：（国发院）雷晓燕、易君健

参与老师：赵耀辉、李玲、刘国恩、张丹丹、黄炜

主讲人：Lee M. Lockwood （University of Virginia）

摘要：

The value of health insurance depends on the extent to which it insures all risks, not just health care costs. Using a variety of approaches, I find that for U.S. households, health insurance systematically exacerbates other risks---enough that it increases consumption risk on net. The key driver is the implicit health insurance provided by discounts, charity care, and bad debt. This implicit insurance provides significant protection against health care costs, especially when other circumstances are worse. This not only reduces the value of additional insurance against health care costs, it also insures other risks. Health insurance, in displacing this insurance of other risks, exacerbates them. This is an important cost of health insurance and of the unevenness of the safety net.

主讲人简介：

Lee M. Lockwood is an associate professor of Economics, University of Virginia, and he is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. As associate editor of the Journal of Political Economy, Professor Lockwood gives professional advice in the fields of labor and health economics, health insurance, He is the Winner of the 2019 TIAA Paul A. Samuelson Award for Outstanding Scholarly Writing on Lifelong Financial Security，and has novel and professional perspectives on related fields.