Improving Takeup of Health Insurance Program: A Social Experiment in France

This paper is based on a randomized experiment conducted in order to understand the low takeup rate of a complementary health-insurance voucher program for the poorest in France. We explore two of the main hypotheses put forward to explain low enrollment: difficulties in accessing information about the program and a voucher amount considered to be too low. Results show that a voucher increase has a small but significant effect on takeup and the invitation to an information meeting discourages it. This study confirms the difficulties that are faced in increasing the health-insurance coverage of poor populations via subsidy programs.