We document facts about medical spending of the US population using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey dataset. We find that for the entire population, around 44% of the total medical spending is paid by private insurance but there is a substantial difference in terms of financing medical care...

Individuals' medical spending has both necessary and discretionary components which are not, however, separately observable. This paper studies ways to improve upon existing public health insurance policies by using a framework where both the discretionary and necessary components of medical...

We assess the quantitative importance of reclassification risk in the US health insurance market. Reclassification risk arises because the health conditions of individuals evolve over time, while a typical health insurance contract only lasts for one year. Thus, a change in the health status can...