Price Responsiveness in Health Plan Choice: Evidence for Policymaking

The researchers explored the issue of price responsiveness in selecting health plans. Specifically, they (1) reviewed and synthesized the literature on consumer price responsiveness in health plan choice; (2) summarized the key features of existing studies that produce an estimate of health plan price responsiveness; (3) expressed price responsiveness consistently across studies; (4) determined what factors explain differences across studies in estimates of price responsiveness; and (5) developed recommendations for policy analysts choosing parameter estimates for simulations. The purpose of this project was to provide researchers and policy analysts with information that will enable them to easily and effectively apply the results of literature on consumer price responsiveness in health plan choice to policy simulations.