Risk Pooling and Regulation in Today's Individual Health Insurance Market

In the paper, the authors provide evidence based on analysis of recent data on how the individual health insurance market currently functions. The data will describe insurance pricing and purchasing by individuals who lack attractive access to the other market. Compared to the wide variation in policymakers' opinions, there is actually considerable regularity in behavior of consumers and insurers, and considerable (though definitely not perfect) agreement in empirical analyses of this behavior. [19 PDF pages]