To remain financially sound, health insurance companies must charge higher rates to insure people considered a higher risk. Lacking complete information about individuals, insurers are forced to set a standard rate, based on the average risk of the group, for a particular segment of the population. Consumers in poor health are willing to pay for the insurance, knowing that it will cover their higher-than-average health-care costs. In contrast, healthy consumers often decide to forgo the insurance, reasoning that it is less expensive to pay out-of-pocket for their lower-than-average health-care costs. The result, called "adverse selection," is that the riskier members of a group will comprise the group of insurance applicants, potentially leading to a market failure in which insurance companies cannot afford to offer insurance at any price.
Among people over age sixty-five, even the wealthy can have difficulty obtaining fairly priced medical insurance, simply because of their age. However, those who blame so-called insurance company greed and discrimination against the elderly are ignoring the reality of adverse selection. Younger people generally obtain health insurance through their employers' group insurance plan. Employer's plans obligate all employees to enroll in the plan and effectively pre-screen for general health, as a minimum health level is required to hold a job. Insurance companies can therefore charge a lower premium, based on the lower average risk of the employee pool, without worrying that healthy employees will opt out of the plan. Consumers over sixty-five, typically not employed and thus seeking insurance individually, are necessarily more vulnerable to market failure stemming from adverse selection.
The author refers to "greed and discrimination" in the second paragraph of the passage in order to
A>provide an example of the way some consumers are treated unfairly
B>explain how medical insurance pricing decisions are justified
C>accuse employers of failing to solve the problem of adverse selection
D>identify causes of adverse selection
E> identify an alternate explanation that the author disputes
OA is
E
Could anybody explain this??
Among people over age sixty-five, even the wealthy can have difficulty obtaining fairly priced medical insurance, simply because of their age. However, those who blame so-called insurance company greed and discrimination against the elderly are ignoring the reality of adverse selection. Younger people generally obtain health insurance through their employers' group insurance plan. Employer's plans obligate all employees to enroll in the plan and effectively pre-screen for general health, as a minimum health level is required to hold a job. Insurance companies can therefore charge a lower premium, based on the lower average risk of the employee pool, without worrying that healthy employees will opt out of the plan. Consumers over sixty-five, typically not employed and thus seeking insurance individually, are necessarily more vulnerable to market failure stemming from adverse selection.
The author refers to "greed and discrimination" in the second paragraph of the passage in order to
A>provide an example of the way some consumers are treated unfairly
B>explain how medical insurance pricing decisions are justified
C>accuse employers of failing to solve the problem of adverse selection
D>identify causes of adverse selection
E> identify an alternate explanation that the author disputes
OA is
E
Could anybody explain this??
