IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bos/wpaper/wp2007-036.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Response: Run for Cover Now or Later?The impact of premiums, threats and deadlines on supplementary private health insurance in Australia

Author

Listed:
  • Randall P. Ellis

    () (Department of Economics, Boston University)

  • Elizabeth Savageb

    (University of Technology Sydney, Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation, Sydney, Australia)

Abstract

Between 1997 and 2000 the Australian government introduced three policy reforms that aimed to increase private health insurance coverage and reduce public hospital demand. The first provided income-based tax incentives; the second gave an across-the-board 30% premium subsidy; and the third introduced selective age-based premium increases for those enrolling after a deadline. Together the reforms increased enrolment by 50% and reduced the average age of enrollees. The deadline appeared to induce consumers to enroll now rather than delay. We estimate a model of individual insurance decisions and examine the effects of the reforms on the age and income distribution of those with private cover. We interpret the major driver of the increased enrollment as a response to a deadline and an advertising blitz, rather than a pure price response.

Suggested Citation

  • Randall P. Ellis & Elizabeth Savageb, 2007. "Response: Run for Cover Now or Later?The impact of premiums, threats and deadlines on supplementary private health insurance in Australia," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2007-036, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bos:wpaper:wp2007-036
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthew Rabin & Ted O'Donoghue, 1999. "Doing It Now or Later," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 103-124, March.
    2. Colm Harmon & Brian Nolan, 2001. "Health insurance and health services utilization in Ireland," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(2), pages 135-145.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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:bos:wpaper:wp2007-036. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Program Coordinator). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/decbuus.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.