Health insurance in the health administration curriculum

Managers and policymakers knowledgeable in the delivery and financing of health care are needed in the health care industry, and health administration programs can meet this need by expanding course offerings which consider the role and operations of insurers. This paper surveys the major topics in the field of health insurance and presents a course overview for an introduction to the field of health insurance for health administration students.     

Preventing and preparing for animal health emergencies in the Far East

The advantageous geographical location of Member Countries of the Office International des Epizooties in the Far East (often islands or peninsulas) provides better isolation than that of countries with terrestrial frontiers. However, in the light of the explosive foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak which occurred in Taipei China in 1997 after nearly 70 years of freedom from FMD, countries in the Far East were alerted to the fact that while countries can be physically far or isolated from the rest of the world, they do not necessarily remain protected from epidemics and consequently need to be aware of effective methods of management of animal health emergencies. Countries in the Far East reviewed national management policies from the viewpoint of organisational structure, surveillance system, diagnostic service, vaccine stock, funding, legislation etc., and reconstructed these policies to ensure they were better organised to prevent and control malignant diseases, such as FMD, in the case of an emergency. With the accelerating and increasing movement of animals and animal products internationally, countries in the region met in Tokyo in April 1998 to discuss preparedness and management of animal health emergencies.     

Health insurance take-up by the near-elderly

OBJECTIVE: To examine the effect of price on the demand for health insurance by early retirees between the ages of 55 and 64. DATA SOURCE: Administrative health plan enrollment data from a medium-sized U.S. employer. STUDY DESIGN: The analysis takes advantage of a natural experiment created by the firm's health insurance contribution policy. The amount the firm contributes toward retiree health insurance coverage depends on when a person retired and her years of service at that date. As a result of this policy, there is considerable variation in out-of-pocket premiums faced by individuals in the data. This variation is independent of the nonprice attributes of the health insurance plans offered and is plausibly exogenous to individual characteristics that are likely to affect the demand for insurance. A probit model is used to estimate the decision to take-up employer-sponsored health insurance by early retirees between the ages of 55 and 64. Demand for insurance is measured as a function of out-of-pocket premiums and a set of individual characteristics. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We find that price has a small but statistically significant effect on the decision to take up coverage. Estimated price elasticities range from -0.10 to -0.16, depending on the sample. CONCLUSIONS: The implied elasticities are comparable with results found in previous studies using very different data. Our estimates indicate that policy proposals for a Medicare buy-in or a nongroup tax credit will have a modest impact on take-up rates of near-elderly retirees.