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The Demand Elasticity of Health Care Spending for Low-Income Individuals

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  • Acquatella, Angélique

Abstract

Low-income individuals are typically the most price sensitive segment of the mar-ket, but this is not true in the market for health care services. I show that low-income individuals have a smaller demand elasticity of medical spending with re-spect to coinsurance, relative to their higher income counterparts, using data from the RAND Health Insurance experiment. The null effect is driven by disproportion-ate share of low-income individuals who consume zero health care. The key insight is that low-income individuals may optimally consume zero health care because, when marginal utility of consumption is high, forgoing non-medical consumption becomes very costly.

Suggested Citation

  • Acquatella, Angélique, 2023. "The Demand Elasticity of Health Care Spending for Low-Income Individuals," TSE Working Papers 23-1477, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:128561
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liran Einav & Amy Finkelstein, 2018. "Moral Hazard in Health Insurance: What We Know and How We Know It," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 957-982.
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    3. Bhattacharya, Jay & Lakdawalla, Darius, 2006. "Does Medicare benefit the poor?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 277-292, January.
    4. Saurabh Bhargava & George Loewenstein & Justin Sydnor, 2017. "Choose to Lose: Health Plan Choices from a Menu with Dominated Option," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(3), pages 1319-1372.
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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory

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