Household Demand for Health Insurance: Price and Spouse's Coverage

摘要

Demand for employment-based health insurance has traditionally been treated as an individual rather than a household decision. Dual-earner households are now the typical U.S. married household, however, and most firms offer family coverage as one of the options available to employees. Findings from a model that jointly estimates married workers' take-up of their own employer-based insurance with both their own and their spouses' insurance offers indicate that both own insurance price and opportunities for coverage under spouses' employer-based plans are statistically important determinants of insurance take-up in dual-earner households.