Suppose that you are in charge of an insurance company. Two kinds of people want insurance, healthy people who probably will not get sick this year and unhealthy people who probably will get sick this year. Healthy people expect to pay, on average, $4,000 on medical bills this year. Unhealthy people expect to pay, on average, $8,000 on medical bills this year. Consider these assumptions and then answer the problem.
(i) People will not pay more for insurance than they expect to pay in medical bills; people are risk neutral. As such, healthy people will not pay more than $4,000 for insurance, and sick people will not pay more than $8,000.
(ii) You want to insure as many people as possible, but you cannot charge less for insurance than you expect to pay out. If you do, you will go bankrupt, and you will not be able to pay the medical bills of some people who get sick.
(iii) People know whether they are healthy or unhealthy, but it is either impossible or illegal for you to know whether a person is healthy or unhealthy. This means that you cannot charge less to healthy people and more to sick people since you do not know which individuals fall into each group.
(iv) There are an equal number of healthy and unhealthy people.
How much will you charge for insurance in equilibrium, and who will buy insurance?
a. You charge $2,000 and everyone buys insurance.
b. You charge $3,000 and only unhealthy people buy insurance.
c. You charge $1,000 and everyone buys insurance.
d. You charge $1,000 and only healthy people buy insuran.
e. You charge $3,000 and everyone buys insurance.