Field of Research

Health Economics

Research Topics

Health, Health insurance, and Employment

Overview of Research 

Illness and the associated financial burden are risks for everyone. My research interest lies in empirically examining how people deal with health and medical expense risks and how health-related policies impact society through people’s behavior.

For instance, consider the financial risk of medical bill burden. Ideally, people manage this risk by sharing it through health insurance. Many join insurance and pay premiums to cover payouts when someone unfortunately falls ill. However, in countries such as the United States, where public health insurance is only available to a portion of the population, how do people cope with this risk?

There are primarily three approaches used. The first is enrolling in private health insurance, mainly through employer-sponsored health insurance (ESHI). The second is saving and borrowing. People use money saved during healthy periods to pay for medical expenses or borrow money when ill and repaying it after recovery. The third is the safety net provided by hospitals and clinics. According to federal law, hospitals must provide care to patients in emergency conditions, regardless of their ability to pay. As a result, hospitals often partially waive medical charges or effectively allow payment deferrals for patients with limited financial means. This practice is considered an important insurance function for the uninsured and low-income individuals.

In my current research, I aim to examine how people utilize these three methods to cope with medical bill risks and how the demand for private health insurance varies depending on the availability of the other two alternative methods: saving/borrowing and safety nets by medical providers. The figure below illustrates how the marginal willingness to pay for ESHI varies based on an individual’s net liquid assets and medical debt owed to hospitals. In the future, I plan to expand this analysis to examine how ESHI-related policies impact the labor market through behaviors of workers and firms.

Additionally, I research topics beyond health insurance, such as the impact of health check-up results on subsequent health outcomes and the effects of population decline and aging on access to outpatient medical services. If you are interested, please check my homepage for further details.

NISHIYAMA, Katsuhiko
Lecturer
Degree:Ph.D. in Economics （University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill）
nishiyama.katsuhiko.osipp@osaka-u.ac.jp