TY  - JOUR
AU  - Buchmueller,Thomas C.
TI  - Price and the Health Plan Choices of Retirees
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11395
PY  - 2005
Y2  - June 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11395
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11395.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Thomas C. Buchmueller
Stephen M. Ross School of Business
University of Michigan
701 Tappan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Tel: 734/764-5933
E-Mail: tbuch@bus.umich.edu
AB  - This study analyzes health plan choices of retirees in an employer-sponsored health benefits program that resembles "premium support" models proposed for Medicare. In this program, out-of-pocket premiums depend on when an individual retired and his or her years of service as of that date. Since this price variation is exogenous to unobserved plan attributes and retiree characteristics, it possible to obtain unbiased premium elasticity estimates. The results indicate a significantly negative effect of premiums. The implied elasticities are at the low end of the range found in previous studies on active employees.
ER  -