In: Economics
Healthcare Moral Hazard
An individual's demand for physician office visits in a given year is given by, Q = 14 - 0.075P, where Q is the number of office visits and P is the out-of-pocket price paid by the individual for each visit. Assume the market price of an office visit is $150.
Use this information to answer the questions below.
Questions (4):
1. Without insurance, how many office visits would the individual make in one year?
NOTE: Enter a formula to calculate the number of visits, rounding your answer to the nearest whole number.
2. Suppose the individual does have insurance and pays only a $40 copayment for each visit. How many office visits will the individual make in one year?
NOTE: Again, enter a formula, rounding your answer to the nearest whole number.
3. What is the moral hazard and deadweight loss (DWL) associated with this individual having insurance? NOTE: Enter formulas in the respective boxes below.
Moral Hazard:
Deadweight loss (DWL):
4. Enter a formula to calculate the proportion of total expenditure on office visits (for this individual with insurance) that is deadweight loss.
1. Without insurance Q= number of visits will occur at the market price of an office visit=150$
inserting P=150$ in the demand equation, we get
Q=14-0.075P
Q=14-0.075*150=2.75 or 3 visits after rounding up.
2. Now supposing the individual only has to pay 40$ as copayment for each visit, his demand curve will reflect that the price he has to pay is only 40$
Inserting P=40 in the demand curve we get
Q=14-0.075P
Q=14-0.075*40=11
Therefore the individual will make 11 visits in a year.
3. Since he visited only 3 times before and he visits 11 times
now, the moral hazard is 11-3=8 visits
The deadweight loss will be the previous social welfare-present
social welfare=previous consumer surplus-(present consumer
surplus-money that insurance company has to pay) (Since the
producer surplus is 0 at a constant market price of 150)
Current consumer surplus= 0.5*146.67*11=1026.67 (186.67 is the
demand price for the first visit,consumer surplus will be the area
of the triangle from (0,40), (0,186.67) and (11,40)
Money the insurance company has to pay= 11*(150-40)=1210
Previous consumer surplus=0.5*36.67*3=55
So deadweight loss=55-(1026.67-1210)=238.33
4. Total expenditure on office visits=11*150=1650 and the
percentage of it that is deadweight loss=283.33/1650=17.1717%
I don't know what the variable is supposed to be here so I don't
know what the question means when it asks for formula,but I hope
it's clear. Also I'm not sure what calculating moral hazard meant
because it's not something you calculate(like it's just a problem,
like adverse selection for example) but i'm assuming the number of
extra visits a patient will do due to the insurance.