RAND's Health Insurance Experiment (HIE)
The RAND Health Insurance Experiment (HIE), the most important health insurance study ever conducted, addressed two key questions in health care financing:
- How much more medical care will people use if it is provided free of charge?
- What are the consequences for their health?
The HIE project was started in 1971 and funded by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (now the Department of Health and Human Services). It was a 15-year, multimillion-dollar effort that to this day remains the largest health policy study in U.S. history. The study's conclusions encouraged the restructuring of private insurance and helped increase the stature of managed care.
Publication and Discussion
RAND Health Insurance Experiment (HIE): The Conversation Continues — November 24, 2007
The RAND Health Insurance Experiment (HIE) showed that modest cost sharing reduces use of services with negligible effects on health for the average person. Recent blog discussions have challenged the statistical basis for this finding. Dr. Joseph Newhouse, who directed the HIE, clarifies the issue.
Read abstract and full response
Read more from the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School
The Health Insurance Experiment: A Classic RAND Study Speaks to the Current Health Care Reform Debate — 2006
Robert H. Brook, Emmett B. Keeler, Kathleen N. Lohr, Joseph P. Newhouse, John E. Ware, William H. Rogers, Allyson Ross Davies, Cathy D. Sherbourne, George A. Goldberg, Patricia Camp, Caren Kamberg, Arleen Leibowitz, Joan Keesey, David Reboussin.
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