Health Insurance Design Meets Saving Incentives: Consumer Responses to Complex Contracts Apr 26, 2022 By Adam Leive Health Insurance Design Meets Saving Incentives: Consumer Responses to Complex Contracts To lower health care costs, Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) offer tax incentives encouraging people to trade off current consumption against future consumption. This paper tests whether consumers use HSAs as self-insurance over the life cycle. Using administrative data from a large employer and a regression discontinuity design, I estimate the marginal propensity to consume from HSA assets is 0.85 and reject the neoclassical benchmark of 0. Comparisons with 401(k) saving show most employees do not treat HSA money as fungible with retirement savings. In this setting, HSAs did not reduce health spending and instead increased the share that was financed tax-free. Link to Publication HSAs and Savings Incentives Research FAQs Download Overview Areas of focus Health Policy Economics Adam Leive Adam Leive is an assistant professor of public policy and economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and in the Department of Economics (by courtesy) at the University of Virginia. He is a health economist with research interests at the intersection of consumer decision-making, household finance, and public economics. Read full bio Related Content Adam Leive Has Mortality Risen Disproportionately for the Least Educated? Research Two Batten professors examine whether the least educated population groups experienced the worst mortality trends at the beginning of the 21st century by measuring changes in mortality across education quartiles. Wage Insurance and Labor Market Trajectories Research Wage insurance provides income support to displaced workers who find reemployment at a lower wage. This group of scholars study the effects of the wage insurance provisions of the US Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program using administrative data from the state of Virginia. What they find suggests that wage insurance eligibility increases short-run employment probabilities and that wage insurance and TAA training may yield similar long-run effects on employment and earnings. Armed with Humor, Batten Student Named Among Nation's Top Four Army ROTC Cadets News The Navy Federal Credit Union has selected Batten student Jacob Shapero (MPP '21) as one of four Army ROTC All-Americans nationwide. Q&A: Do Work Requirements Aid Those on Public Assistance? Batten Professor Says No. News Adam Leive, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Batten School, questions the effectiveness of work requirements in public assistance.
Adam Leive Adam Leive is an assistant professor of public policy and economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and in the Department of Economics (by courtesy) at the University of Virginia. He is a health economist with research interests at the intersection of consumer decision-making, household finance, and public economics. Read full bio
Has Mortality Risen Disproportionately for the Least Educated? Research Two Batten professors examine whether the least educated population groups experienced the worst mortality trends at the beginning of the 21st century by measuring changes in mortality across education quartiles.
Wage Insurance and Labor Market Trajectories Research Wage insurance provides income support to displaced workers who find reemployment at a lower wage. This group of scholars study the effects of the wage insurance provisions of the US Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program using administrative data from the state of Virginia. What they find suggests that wage insurance eligibility increases short-run employment probabilities and that wage insurance and TAA training may yield similar long-run effects on employment and earnings.
Armed with Humor, Batten Student Named Among Nation's Top Four Army ROTC Cadets News The Navy Federal Credit Union has selected Batten student Jacob Shapero (MPP '21) as one of four Army ROTC All-Americans nationwide.
Q&A: Do Work Requirements Aid Those on Public Assistance? Batten Professor Says No. News Adam Leive, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Batten School, questions the effectiveness of work requirements in public assistance.