Browsing by Subject "Health insurance"
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Item Essays in economics dynamics and uncertainty(2012-05) Dumav, Martin; Corbae, Dean; Stinchcombe, Maxwell; Mathevet, Laurent; Wiseman, Thomas; Zitkovic, GordanThis work presents a systematic investigation of two topics. One is in stochastic dynamic general equilibrium. It incorporates private information into dynamic general equilibrium framework. An existence of competitive equilibrium is established. Quantitative analysis is provided for health insurance problem. The other topic is in decision problems under ambiguity. Lack of precise information regarding a decision problem is represented by a set of probabilities. Descriptive richness of the set of probabilities is defi ned. It is used to generalize Skorohod's theorem to sets of probabilities. The latter is used to show the constancy of the coefficient in alpha-maximin multiple prior preferences. Examples illustrate: the implications of this representation; and the restrictions arising from the failure of descriptive richness.Item Essays on health insurance and the family(2013-05) Dillender, Marcus Owen; Black, Sandra E.The three chapters of this dissertation explore the ties among health insurance, changing cultural institution, and labor economics. The first chapter focuses on the relationship between health insurance and wages by taking advantage of states that extended health insurance dependent coverage to young adults before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Using American Community Survey and Census data, I find evidence that extending health insurance to young adults raises their wages, both while they are eligible for insurance through their parents' employers and afterwards. The increases in wages can be explained by increases in human capital and increased flexibility in the labor market that comes from people no longer having to rely on their own employers for health insurance. The second chapter focuses on understanding the impact of allowing coverage of spouses through employer-sponsored health insurance. The fact that people choose to enter into marriage makes comparing the differences between married and unmarried couples uninformative. To get around this, I examine how shocks to access to insurance through a spouse's employer brought on by extensions in legal recognition have influenced health insurance and labor force decisions for same-sex couples. I find extending legal recognition to same-sex couples results in female same-sex couples being more likely to have one member not in the labor force. The third chapter examines what extending legal recognition to same-sex couples has done to marriage rates in the United States using a strategy that compares how marriage rates change after legal recognition in states that alter legal recognition versus states that do not. Despite claims that allowing same-sex couples to marry will reduce the marriage rate for opposite-sex couples, I find no evidence that allowing same-sex couples to marry reduces the opposite-sex marriage rate. The opposite-sex marriage rate does decrease, however, when domestic partnerships are available to opposite-sex couples.Item Health benefits and support for Austin musicians(2009-12) Kalan, Harsh; Burd, Gene; Brenner, R B.There is plenty of support for local musicians in Austin. It ranges from providing health benefits to receiving home loans to equipment insurance. The live music capital of the world has provisions for recording artists as well as street performers whose primary source of income is music. These facilities go a long way in maintaining Austin‟s identity as one of the major music cities in the world. They also bring together members of this community for benefits that help strengthen the local music industry, which has been an important part of the city‟s economy for several years.Item Medical insurance and prepaid hospitalization in the United States(Texas Tech University, 1948-06) Carson, Willis ThomasNot availableItem New aspects of product risk measurement and management in the U.S. life and health insurance industries(2012-05) Shi, Bo; Baranoff, Etti G.; Sager, Thomas W.; Brockett, Patrick L.; Shively, Thomas S.; Kendrick, David A.Product risk is important to firms’ enterprise risk management. This dissertation focuses on product risk in the U.S. life insurance and health insurance industries. In particular, we add new dimensions to the measurement of product risk for these industries, and we explore how these industries manage product risk in a context of other enterprise risks. In this dissertation, we identify new product risks, propose new measures, and study the management of these risks. In the life insurance industry, we identify a new type of product risk, the guarantee risk, caused by variable annuities with guaranteed living benefits (VAGLB). We propose a value-at-risk type measure inspired by the risk-based capital C3 Phase II to quantify the guarantee risk. In the health insurance industry, where the degree of uncertainty varies for different types of health insurance policies, we develop four exposure-based risk measures to capture health insurers’ product risks. Then we study how life and health insurers manage product risks (and asset risks) by using capital in the context of other risks and appropriate controls. We add to the literature in the life insurance industry by examining the relationship between capital and risks when the guarantee risk is accounted for. In the health insurance industry, to our knowledge, no similar research on the relationship between capital and risks has been conducted. In view of the current topicality of health insurance, our research therefore adds a timely contribution to the understanding of health insurer risk management in an era of health care reform. Capital structure theories, transaction cost economics, and insurers’ risk-taking behaviors provide the theoretical foundation for our research. As to methodology, we implement standard capital structure models for the life and health insurance industries using data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) annual filings of life/health insurers and health insurers. Simultaneous equations modeling is used to model life and health insurers’ enterprise risk management. And the estimation is conducted by the generalized estimation equations (GEE). We find that both U.S. life/health insurers and health insurers prudently build up capital as they experience more product risk and asset risk controlling for the other enterprise risks. We also find that life/health insurers may be using derivatives as a partial substitute for capital when managing new product risk caused by VAGLB, the guarantee risk.Item RediClinic : an evaluation of a convenient care clinic in a shifting medical landscape(2010-12) Edwards, Lauren Jean; Mackert, Michael; Love, BradThis paper offers in-depth look at the convenient care/retail clinic industry in the context of today’s changing medical landscape with specific focus on Texas-based RediClinic. In addition to a detailed analysis of RediClinic, this paper proposes detailed advertising, marketing and social media recommendations that will aid RediClinic in bolstering its brand image and expanding its client base. Every suggested tactic is framed within the rapidly changing healthcare environment present in America, and specific focus is given to the recent passing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This paper attempts to aid RediClinic in understanding and leveraging its most important strengths: its strong position within the Texas market, and its service to those who are currently uninsured.Item Total and segmented direct cost-of-care for stage IV non-small cell lung cancer in a privately insured population(2011-05) Bell, Allison Miriam; Koeller, Jim; Frei, Christopher; Ryan, Laurajo; Penrod, JohnIntroduction: New treatments for stage IV (adv) NSCLC have emerged this past decade. Recent pharmacoeconomic research has focused on cost of treatment, comparative costs of therapies, and cost/cost effectiveness of adding a biologic to traditional therapy. Drug cost is thought to be a primary driver of cost change in NSCLC, yet to our knowledge, characterization of the direct cost of NSCLC has not been published since the new treatments have emerged in the guidelines. Our primary objective was to characterize the direct and segmented cost of adv NSCLC from 2000-9. We also want to determine cost impact of new therapies, and cost trend from 2000-9. Methods: This PharMetrics claims database study includes diagnosed NSCLC patients [greater than or equal to] 20 yo. Small cell lung cancer was excluded. Claims were divided into disease segments and time periods representative of changes in therapy ("pre" (2000-2), "transition" (2003-5), and "current" (2006-9) periods). Descriptive statistics (median, interquartile range (IQR)), chi-square test (nominal data), and Wilcoxan rank sum tests were performed on the data. To adjust for baseline confounders, multivariate least squares regression models were created. Results: Costs are reported as medians in terms of per patient per month (pppm). Overall monthly cost (n=969) was $10,281 pppm. Diagnosis cost $6,601 pppm, active treatment cost $9,287 pppm, and end-of life cost $12,215 pppm. There was no difference in cost between the “transition” (n=439) and “current” (n=503) periods overall or for any segment of disease. Comorbidities had no effect on cost. For patients receiving at least 5 months of active treatment medication (n=316) total median cost was $144,147 per patient ($9,371 pppm). Discussion: There was no difference in cost between the transition and current periods, in regards to either overall cost or segmented cost. The most expensive segment was end-of-life, with a median cost exceeding $12,000 pppm. Surprisingly, comorbidities had no effect on cost. Newer agents (biologics, TKIs, and pemetrexed) represent only a modest portion of cost, with a majority of cost for stage IV NSCLC comprised of non-drug costs.