Behavior economics principles offer guidelines to health care reform

Following the recent retraction of the American Health Care Act, two researchers propose four general principles from behavioral economics as guidelines for any future attempt at health care reform. The principles may help to keep currently insured individuals and households from discontinuing their insurance.“The behavioral economics approach cannot solve all of the problems facing U.S. health care. But behavioral principles can inform approaches to help ensure that insurance markets do not unravel, which is the first and most important challenge of any ‘repeal and replace’ efforts,” Jonathan S. Skinner, PhD, from the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, New Hampshire, and Kevin G. Volpp, MD, PhD, from the University of Pennsylvania, wrote. “Coupled with other approaches to reduce costs, behavioral reform could provide some needed optimism for 2017: Lower health insurance premiums for the first time in recent memory.”