In the Media

Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with Newsweek reporter Jasmine Laws about catastrophic healthcare plans. "A common conservative criticism of public provision of health insurance is that we should just give folks 'skinny' or 'catastrophic' plans. But what these critics never grapple with is what would be included in these plans,” Gruber explains. “By the time you include anything that would be considered decent insurance – hospital, doctor, drugs, maternity care, mental health care – you are already at 90 percent of the cost of a generous insurance plan. The only way to really make a plan 'skinny' is to charge high deductibles, which many plans on the exchange already do."