Abstract
Background
The federally-facilitated Health Insurance Marketplace—also known as the Health Insurance Exchange—was designed as a tool to help people purchase insurance plans, yet many Americans remain uninsured, partially due to rising premiums. One possible strategy to stabilize its premiums is to encourage healthier people to purchase their plans through the Marketplace instead of through their employers.
Objective
This study examined the values that single adults with employer-based coverage place on health insurance plan attributes using a discrete-choice experiment (DCE).
Methods
As part of an online survey, each respondent completed 28 paired comparisons trading off four attributes: source of coverage, plan type, monthly out-of-pocket premium, and quality of coverage.
Results
Based on our results (N = 2207), single employees slightly preferred their employer over the Marketplace as a source of coverage (0.726 odds ratio; p value < 0.01). Single employees would be willing to switch to the Marketplace for a US$25 reduction in monthly premiums. Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plans were overwhelmingly preferred over all other plan types, especially compared to Fee-for-Service (FFS) plans (4.230 odds ratio; p value < 0.01). The predicted probability that a health insurance plan from the Marketplace would be chosen ranged from 42 to 43.7%.
Conclusion
This study demonstrated that a US$25 subsidy or providing slightly more generous coverage (Bronze–Silver) would motivate employees to purchase PPO plans through the Marketplace, potentially improving its risk pooling, reducing employers’ administrative burden, and enhancing labor mobility.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability statement
The dataset and software code used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
References
Cox C, Long M, Semanskee A, Kamal R, Claxton G, Larry L. 2017 Premium changes and insurer participation in the Affordable Care Act’s Health Insurance Marketplaces. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation 2016. https://www.kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/2017-premium-changes-and-insurer-participation-in-the-affordable-care-acts-health-insurance-marketplaces/. Accessed 18 Feb 2018.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Health Insurance Marketplaces 2017 open enrollment period final enrollment report: November 1, 2016- January 31, 2017. 2017.
Fehr R, Kamal R, Ramirez M, Cox C. How ACA marketplace premiums are changing by county in 2019. Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation. 2018. https://www.kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/how-aca-marketplace-premiums-are-changing-by-county-in-2019/. Accessed 4 Apr 2019.
Kirzinger A, Hamel L, Munana C, Brodie M. Kaiser health tracking poll—march 2018: non-group enrollees. San Francisco: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation; 2018. https://www.kff.org/health-reform/poll-finding/kaiser-health-tracking-pollmarch-2018-non-group-enrollees/. Accessed 3 Apr 2018.
Wamsley L. Trump Administration Says Entire Affordable Care Act Should Be Repealed. National Public Radio. 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/03/26/706869835/trump-administration-now-says-entire-affordable-care-act-should-be-repealed. Accessed 4 Apr 2019.
Clark MD, Determann D, Petrou S, Moro D, de Bekker-Grob EW. Discrete choice experiments in health economics: a review of the literature. PharmacoEconomics. 2014;32(9):883–902.
Drummond MF, Sculpher MJ, Claxton K, Stoddart GL, Torrance GW. Methods for the economic evaluation of health care programmes. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2015.
McFadden D. Conditional logit analysis of qualitative choice behavior. Front Economet. 1974; pp. 105-142.
Orme BK. Getting started with conjoint analysis: strategies for product design and pricing research. 2nd ed. Madison: Research Publishers LLC; 2006.
Bailey J, Chorniy A. Employer-provided health insurance and job mobility: did the affordable care act reduce job lock? Contemp Econ Policy. 2016;34(1):173–83. https://doi.org/10.1111/coep.12119.
Stroupe KT, Kinney ED, Kniesner TJJ. Chronic illness and health insurance-related job lock. J Policy Anal Mang. 2001;20(3):525–44. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.1006.
Pauly MV, Herring B. Pooling health insurance risks. Washington, D.: AEI Press publisher for the American Enterprise Institute; 1999.
Bridges JFP, Mohamed AF, Finnern HW, Woehl A, Hauber AB. Patients’ preferences for treatment outcomes for advanced non-small cell lung cancer: a conjoint analysis. Lung Cancer. 2012;77(1):224–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lungcan.2012.01.016.
Louviere JJ, Lancsar E. Choice experiments in health: the good, the bad, the ugly and toward a brighter future. Health Econ Policy Law. 2009;4:527–46.
Mühlbacher AC, Bethge S, Reed SD, Schulman K. Patient preferences for patient-centered health care delivery systems: a discrete choice experiment. Health Serv Res. 2016;51(2):704–27.
Brabers AE, Reitsma-van Rooigen M, de Jong JD. The Dutch health insurance system: mostly competition on price rather than quality of care. Eurohealth. 2012;18(1):30–3.
Chakraborty G, Ettenson R, Gaeth G. How consumers choose health insurance. J Health Care Mark. 1994;14(1):21–33.
Determann D, Lambooij MS, de Bekker-Grob EW, Hayen AP, Varkevisser M, Schut FT, et al. What health plans do people prefer? The trade-off between premium and provider choice. Soc Sci Med. 2016;165:10–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.07.022.
Gates R, McDaniel C, Braunsberger K. Modeling consumer health plan choice behavior to improve customer value and health plan market share. J Bus Res. 2000;48(3):247–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0148-2963(98)00090-3.
Kerssens JJ, Groenewegen PP. Consumer preferences in social health insurance. Eur J Health Econ. 2005;6(1):8–15.
Trujillo A, Ruiz F, Bridges JFP, Amaya JL, Quiroga CBAM. Understanding consumer preferences in the context of managed competition. Appl Health Econ Health Policy. 2012;10(2):99–111.
Van de Berg B, Dommelen PV, Stam P, Laske-Aldershof T, Buchmueller T, Schut FT. Preferences and choices for care and health insurance. Soc Sci Med. 2008;66:2448–59.
Bliemer MCJ, Rose JM, Hess S. Approximation of bayesian efficiency in experimental choice designs. J Choice Model. 2008;1(1):98–126. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1755-5345(13)70024-1.
Reed Johnson F, Lancsar E, Marshall D, Kilambi V, Mühlbacher A, Regier DA, et al. Constructing experimental designs for discrete-choice experiments: report of the ISPOR Conjoint Analysis Experimental Design Good Research Practices Task Force. Value in Health. 2013;16(1):3–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jval.2012.08.2223.
Lancsar E, Louviere J, Flynn T. Several methods to investigate relative attribute impact in stated preference experiments. Soc Sci Med. 2007;64(8):1738–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2006.12.007.
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 2017 Employer Health Benefits Survey. 2017. https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2017-summary-of-findings/. Accessed 24 Apr 2018.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Health Insurance Exchanges 2018 Open Enrollment Period Final Report. 2018. https://www.cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Fact-sheets/2018-Fact-sheets-items/2018-04-03.html?DLPage=1&DLEntries=10&DLSort=0&DLSortDir=descending. Accessed 24 Apr 2018.
Veldwijk J, Lambooij MS, de Bekker-Grob EW, Smit HA, de Wit GA. The effect of including an opt-out option in discrete choice experiments. PLoS One. 2014;9(11):e111805-e. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0111805.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Stephen Poteet and Benjamin M. Craig conceived of the presented idea, contributed to the design and implementation of the research, to the analysis of the results, and to the writing of the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Funding
Funding support for this research was provided by Benjamin M. Craig, PhD, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA. The funding agreements ensured the authors’ independence in designing the study, interpreting the data, writing, and publishing the report.
Conflict of interest
The authors Stephen Poteet and Benjamin M. Craig declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Poteet, S., Craig, B.M. The Value Employees Place on Health Insurance Plans: A Discrete-Choice Experiment. Appl Health Econ Health Policy 17, 817–825 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40258-019-00507-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40258-019-00507-1