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Why do people buy health insurance? Conventional theory holds that people purchase insurance because they prefer the certainty of paying a small premium to the risk of getting sick and paying a large medical bill. Conventional theory also holds that any additional health care that people purchase when they are insured is of such low value that it is not worth the costs of providing it. As a result, economists have promoted policies, such as cost sharing and managed care, to reduce consumption of this "low-value" care. This book presents a new theory of consumer demand for heath insurance. It holds that people purchase insurance to obtain additional "income" when they become ill. In effect, insurance companies take the premiums paid by those who remain relatively healthy and transfer them to those who come down with a serious disease. This additional income often allows sick persons to obtain medical care that they may not otherwise be able to afford. The value of health insurance, therefore, stems largely from the value of the additional health care that insurance makes possible, and has little, if anything, to do with preferences for certainty. Because its value lies largely in providing access to necessary health care, health insurance is held to be much more valuable under the new theory than the old. The new theory also implies that cost sharing and managed care -- central health policies of the last 30 years -- were largely directed at solving problems that did not exist. Because these policies either reduced the "income" transferred to ill persons or limited access to additional health care, they may have done more harm than good. The new theory suggests that insurancecoverage should be extended to the uninsured. It also provides a solid theoretical justification for implementing some form of national health insurance. The new theory emphasizes three constraints.

Health Insurance is a Family Matter is the third of a series of six reports on the problems of uninsurance in the United Sates and addresses the impact on the family of not having health insurance. The book demonstrates that having one or more uninsured members in a family can have adverse consequences for everyone in the household and that the financial, physical, and emotional well-being of all members of a family may be adversely affected if any family member lacks coverage. It concludes with the finding that uninsured children have worse access to and use fewer health care services than children with insurance, including important preventive services that can have beneficial long-term effects.