Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2018
ISSN
1549-3199
Publisher
Indianapolis School of Law-Indianapolis
Language
en-US
Abstract
U.S. policymakers, scholars, and advocates have long displayed an ideological commitment to exposing insured patients to substantial out-of-pocket expenses. These commitments derive from both overt political ideologies, which favor individual responsibility and oppose redistribution of wealth and risks, as well as more-subtle ideological commitments of academic economists, which link observed patterns of consumption to value-claims about welfare. In this symposium contribution, we document those ideological commitments and juxtapose them with a review of the scientific evidence about the actual effects of patient cost-sharing. We find, as economic theory predicts, that patients exposed to healthcare costs consume less healthcare. However, a fair review of the evidence — including the effects on health outcomes, access to care, and financial insecurity — makes it very hard to conclude that substantial and untailored cost-sharing exposure — as we have seen in actual application — is good social policy. We suggest directions for future study and reform.
Recommended Citation
Christopher Robertson & Victor Laurion,
Ideology Meets Reality: What Works and What Doesn't in Patient Exposure to Health Care Costs
,
in
15
Indiana Health Law Review
43
(2018).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/1122
