Does full insurance increase the demand for health care?

Boes, Stefan; Gerfin, Michael (October 2013). Does full insurance increase the demand for health care? (Discussion Papers 13-05). Bern: Department of Economics

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We estimate the causal effect of having full health insurance on health care expenditures.
We take advantage of a unique quasi-experimental setup in which deductibles and copayments were zero in a managed care plan, and non-zero in regular insurance, until a policy change forced all individuals with an active plan to cover a minimum amount of their expenses. Using panel data and a non-linear difference-in-differences strategy, we find a demand elasticity of about -0.14 comparing full insurance with the cost-sharing model, and a significant upward shift in the likelihood to generate costs.

Item Type:

Working Paper

Division/Institute:

03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Department of Economics

UniBE Contributor:

Boes, Stefan, Gerfin, Michael

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 330 Economics

Series:

Discussion Papers

Publisher:

Department of Economics

Language:

English

Submitter:

Lars Tschannen

Date Deposited:

28 Oct 2020 13:57

Last Modified:

09 Aug 2024 05:04

JEL Classification:

I11, C14

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.145766

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/145766

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