IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v12y2003i7p587-599.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Demand for private health insurance: how important is the quality gap?

Author

Listed:
  • Joan Costa
  • Jaume Garcia

Abstract

Perceived quality of private and public health care, income and insurance premium are among the determinants of demand for private health insurance (PHI). In the context of a model in which individuals are expected utility maximizers, the non purchasing choice can result in consuming either public health care or private health care with full cost paid out‐of‐pocket. This paper empirically analyses the effect of the determinants of the demand for PHI on the probability of purchasing PHI by estimating a pseudo‐structural model to deal with missing data and endogeneity issues. Our findings support the hypothesis that the demand for PHI is indeed driven by the quality gap between private and public health care. As expected, PHI is a normal good and a rise in the insurance premium reduces the probability of purchasing PHI albeit displaying price elasticities smaller than one in absolute value for different groups of individuals. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Joan Costa & Jaume Garcia, 2003. "Demand for private health insurance: how important is the quality gap?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(7), pages 587-599, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:12:y:2003:i:7:p:587-599
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.756
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.756
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.756?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James J. Heckman, 1976. "The Common Structure of Statistical Models of Truncation, Sample Selection and Limited Dependent Variables and a Simple Estimator for Such Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 5, number 4, pages 475-492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Propper, Carol, 1993. "Constrained choice sets in the U.K. demand for private medical insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 287-307, July.
    3. Ángel Marcos Vera‐Hernández, 1999. "Duplicate coverage and demand for health care. The case of Catalonia," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(7), pages 579-598, November.
    4. Besley, Timothy & Hall, John & Preston, Ian, 1998. "Private and public health insurance in the UK," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 491-497, May.
    5. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1991. "Public Provision of Private Goods and the Redistribution of Income," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 979-984, September.
    6. Besley, Timothy & Hall, John & Preston, Ian, 1999. "The demand for private health insurance: do waiting lists matter?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 155-181, May.
    7. Hugh Gravelle & Peter C. Smith & Ana Xavier, "undated". "Waiting Times and Waiting Lists: A Model of the Market for Elective Surgery," Discussion Papers 00/27, Department of Economics, University of York.
    8. Ireland, Norman J., 1990. "The mix of social and private provision of goods and services," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 201-219, November.
    9. Iversen, Tor, 1997. "The effect of a private sector on the waiting time in a national health service," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 381-396, August.
    10. Lindsay, Cotton M & Feigenbaum, Bernard, 1984. "Rationing by Waiting Lists," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 404-417, June.
    11. Nyman, John A., 1999. "The value of health insurance: the access motive," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-152, April.
    12. Johannesson, Magnus & Johansson, Per-Olov & Soderqvist, Tore, 1998. "Time spent on waiting lists for medical care: an insurance approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 627-644, October.
    13. Diego R. Palenzuela., "undated". "Provision of private health insurance under public insurance captivity," Working Papers 97-17, FEDEA.
    14. Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard E, 1996. "Public Provision of Private Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 57-84, February.
    15. John Hall & Ian Preston, 1998. "Public and private choice in UK health insurance," IFS Working Papers W98/19, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    16. Miguel Gouveia, 1996. "The public sector and health care," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 3(3), pages 329-349, July.
    17. Van de Ven, Wynand P. M. M. & Van Praag, Bernard M. S., 1981. "The demand for deductibles in private health insurance : A probit model with sample selection," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 229-252, November.
    18. Mireia Jofre-Bonet, 2000. "Public health care and private insurance demand: The waiting time as a link," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 51-71, January.
    19. David M. Cutler & Jonathan Gruber, 1995. "Does Public Insurance Crowd Out Private Insurance?," NBER Working Papers 5082, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Li, L. X. & Benton, W. C., 1996. "Performance measurement criteria in health care organizations: Review and future research directions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 93(3), pages 449-468, September.
    21. Nelson, Forrest & Olson, Lawrence, 1978. "Specification and Estimation of a Simultaneous-Equation Model with Limited Dependent Variables," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 19(3), pages 695-709, October.
    22. Manning, Willard G. & Marquis, M. Susan, 1996. "Health insurance: The tradeoff between risk pooling and moral hazard," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 609-639, October.
    23. Martin, Stephen & Smith, Peter C., 1999. "Rationing by waiting lists: an empirical investigation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 141-164, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joan Costa & Jaume Garcia, 2001. "Demand for private health insurance: Is there a quality gap?," Economics Working Papers 531, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    2. Joan Costa‐Font & Jaume García‐Villar, 2009. "Risk Attitudes And The Demand For Private Health Insurance: The Importance Of ‘Captive Preferences’," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 80(4), pages 499-519, December.
    3. Simona GRASSI, 2006. "On the characteristics of a mixed system of provision of a private good. An application to health care," Departmental Working Papers 2006-14, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    4. López Nicolás, Ángel & Vera-Hernández, Marcos, 2008. "Are tax subsidies for private medical insurance self-financing? Evidence from a microsimulation model," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1285-1298, September.
    5. Marisol Rodríguez & Alexandrina Stoyanova, 2008. "Changes in the demand for private medical insurance following a shift in tax incentives," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(2), pages 185-202, February.
    6. Joan Costa-i-Font & Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2017. "Can Regional Decentralisation Shift Health Care Preferences?," CESifo Working Paper Series 6779, CESifo.
    7. Ángel López-Nicolás & Marcos Vera-Hernández, 2002. "Are tax subsidies for private medical insurance self-financing? Evidence from a microsimulation model for outpatient and inpatient episodes," Economics Working Papers 632, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Oct 2004.
    8. Parry, Ian, 2001. "On the Efficiency of Public and Private Health Care Systems: An Application to Alternative Health Policies in the United Kingdom," RFF Working Paper Series dp-01-07, Resources for the Future.
    9. Costa-Font, Joan & Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada, 2022. "Does devolution influence the choice and quality of public (vs private) health care?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 632-653.
    10. Joan Costa-Font & Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2019. "Regional Decentralisation and the Demand for Public Health Care," Studies on the Spanish Economy eee2019-41, FEDEA.
    11. Sergi Jimenez & Natalia Jorgensen & José María Labeaga, 2008. "Immigration and the Demand for Health in Spain," Working Papers 2008-38, FEDEA.
    12. Marisol Rodríguez & Alexandrina Stoyanova, 2006. "Changes in the demand for private medical insurance following a shift in tax incentives," Working Papers CREAP2006-12, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised Dec 2006.
    13. Raymond Y.T. Yeung & Gabriel M. Leung & Sarah M. McGhee & Janice M. Johnston, 2004. "Waiting time and doctor shopping in a mixed medical economy," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(11), pages 1137-1144, November.
    14. Goddard, John & Tavakoli, Manouche, 2008. "Efficiency and welfare implications of managed public sector hospital waiting lists," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 184(2), pages 778-792, January.
    15. Panos Pashardes & Nicoletta Pashourtidou, 2011. "Consumer welfare from publicly supplemented private goods: age and income effects on demand for health care," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 865-885, December.
    16. Cormac O'Dea & Ian Preston, 2012. "The distributional impact of public spending in the UK," IFS Working Papers W12/06, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    17. Besley, Timothy & Hall, John & Preston, Ian, 1999. "The demand for private health insurance: do waiting lists matter?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 155-181, May.
    18. Pau Olivella & Marcos Vera-Hernandez, 2006. "Testing for adverse selection into private medical insurance," IFS Working Papers W06/02, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    19. Clara Andresciani & Debora Di Gioacchino & Laura Sabani, 2024. "The political economy of the public/private mix in healthcare: assessing the decongestion effect argument," Working Papers - Economics wp2024_23.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    20. Farnworth, Michael G., 2003. "A game theoretic model of the relationship between prices and waiting times," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 47-60, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:12:y:2003:i:7:p:587-599. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.