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Insurance and imperfect financial markets in Grossman's demand for health model--a reply to Tabata and Ohkusa.

In the article by Tabata and Ohkusa, they show that the insurance system set out in Liljas [Liljas, B., 1998a. The demand for health with uncertainty and insurance. Journal of Health Economics 17, 153-170.] does not have an optimal solution, and propose a new formulation. It is argued here that even though the new model works mathematically, it has a less realistic economic foundation. Furthermore, generalizing the Grossman model by making the marginal utility of income variable over time is suggested to be more relevant in the case where there are imperfect financial markets, and a simple example is provided. Overall, there seems to be room for further theoretical extensions in the demand for health literature.

Attitude to Health↗

Correction note on "The demand for health with uncertainty and insurance".

This paper proves the non-existence of an optimal solution under the Liljas [Liljas, B. (1998). The demand for health with uncertainty and insurance. J. Health Econ., 17, 153-170] type of insurance. The reason for the non-existence is that the insurance induces the individual to increase his time input, relative to medical expenditure in the household production of health investment. Hence, it distorts the balance of inputs in the production of health investment. Moreover, it also distorts the household production for consumption goods through time constraints. Therefore, this paper proposes an alternative insurance that covers the time loss due to illness and has an optimal solution.

Attitude to Health↗

Contracts for health care and asymmetric information.

The paper presents a stylised model of contracting for a specific health service. The benefit of this service differs across patients. A purchaser, National Health Service (NHS, insurer) offers a contract to providers (hospitals, GP's), under the constraint of limited information about the provider's costs and the contract specifies the payment as a function of the number of cases treated. A number of features of the optimal contract are derived. Some of these are surprising: for example, the price per case generally increases with the efficiency of the provider.

Budgets↗

Health care expenditure in the last months of life.

In OECD countries, a considerable share of health care expenditure (HCE) is spent for the care of the terminally ill. This paper derives the demand for HCE in the last 2 years of life from a model that accounts for age, mortality risk and wealth. The empirical tests are based on data of deceased members of a major Swiss sick fund. The empirical evidence confirms most of the hypotheses derived from the model, i.e., (i) HCE increases with closeness to death, (ii) for retired individuals, HCE decreases with age, and (iii) low-income individuals, as compared to high-income individuals, incur lower HCE in the last months of life.

Aged↗

Mental health: market power and governance.

This paper is concerned with the pricing behaviour of providers of residential care for people with mental health problems. Two aspects of pricing were considered. First, are there differences between providers' market power and their actual mark-up rates (e.g. due to differences in motivation)? Second, do the different governance arrangements used in sectors of the industry, such as unified public and non-profit organisation and private bilateral contracting, affect pricing behaviour? A theoretical model was developed to underpin the empirical analysis of 496 residents in 112 mental health care facilities. Private, bilateral organisation was found to be associated with comparatively lower potential price-cost mark-up but a greater propensity to use this power to make profits/surpluses.

Data Collection↗

Health care evaluation, utilitarianism and distortionary taxes.

Cost Utility Analysis (CUA) and Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) are methods to evaluate allocations of health care resources. Problems are raised for both methods when income taxes do not meet the first best optimum. This paper explores the implications of three ways that taxes may fall short of this ideal. First, taxes may be distortionary. Second, they may be designed and administered without reference to information that is used by providers of health care. Finally, the share of tax revenue that is devoted to health care may be suboptimal. The two methods are amended to account for these factors.

Cost-Benefit Analysis↗

Disability and the labour market: an analysis of British males.

This paper attempts, using data from the British Labour Force Survey 1996, to examine to what extent differences in labour market outcomes between able-bodied and disabled men may be attributed to differences in endowments of human capital and associated productivity differences. Both labour force participation and selectivity corrected human capital equations are estimated and decomposition techniques applied to them. Using the methodology of Baldwin and Johnson [Baldwin, M., Johnson, W.G., 1994. Labor market discrimination against men with disabilities. Journal of Human Resources, XXIX(1), Winter, 1-19], the employment effects of wage discrimination against the disabled are also estimated. Evidence of both substantial wage and participation rate differences between able-bodied and disabled men are found, which have implications for the operation of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act.

Data Collection↗

The demand for private health care in the UK.

Policy change has eroded the entitlement of UK residents to free state-provided health care, with a resulting rise in the use of the private sector. This paper examines the choice between public and private health care. It models the use of private health care as a function of its costs and benefits relative to state care and no care. The results indicate a difference between users of private care and other care, and the importance of past use as a predictor of current use. But they also show considerable movement between the public and private sectors, indicating a complex relationship in public and private sector use.

Choice Behavior↗

Parental leave and child health.

This study investigates whether rights to parental leave improve pediatric health. Aggregate data are used for 16 European countries over the 1969 through 1994 period. More generous paid leave is found to reduce deaths of infants and young children. The magnitudes of the estimated effects are substantial, especially where a causal effect of leave is most plausible. In particular, there is a much stronger negative relationship between leave durations and post-neonatal or child fatalities than for perinatal mortality, neonatal deaths, or low birth weight. The evidence further suggests that parental leave may be a cost-effective method of bettering child health.

Child Welfare↗

Incorporating option values into the economic evaluation of health care technologies.

Despite uncertainty being intrinsic to economic evaluation of health care, existing techniques for handling uncertainty remain underdeveloped compared to the formal techniques commonly applied in the business sector. This paper develops an alternative approach to handling uncertainty in economic evaluation based on 'option-pricing' techniques. The presence of uncertainty and the degree of irreversibility of a decision make it clear that some flexibility in the timing of a decision is often a desirable characteristic with an economic value. We demonstrate how option-pricing techniques can be applied to the decision rules for economic evaluation in health care. The key determinants of an option value are the presence and type of uncertainty; the ability to defer a decision; and the irreversibility of the decision. The relative significance of each of these for a particular economic evaluation will depend on the particular characteristics of the technology under consideration.

Cost-Benefit Analysis↗

An efficient employer strategy for dealing with adverse selection in multiple-plan offerings: an MSA example.

This paper outlines a feasible employee premium contribution policy, which would reduce the inefficiency associated with adverse selection when a limited coverage insurance policy is offered alongside a more generous policy. The "efficient premium contribution" is defined and is shown to lead to an efficient allocation across plans of persons who differ by risk, but it may also redistribute against higher risks. A simulation of the additional option of a catastrophic health plan (CHP) accompanied by a medical savings account (MSA) is presented. The efficiency gains from adding the MSA/catastrophic health insurance plan (CHP) option are positive but small, and the adverse consequences for high risks under an efficient employee premium are also small.

Community Participation↗

Equity in the delivery of health care in Europe and the US.

This paper presents a comparison of horizontal equity in health care utilization in 10 European countries and the US. It does not only extend previous work by using more recent data from a larger set of countries, but also uses new methods and presents disaggregated results by various types of care. In all countries, the lower-income groups are more intensive users of the health care system. But after indirect standardization for need differences, there is little or no evidence of significant inequity in the delivery of health care overall, though in half of the countries, significant pro-rich inequity emerges for physician contacts. This seems to be due mainly to a higher use of medical specialist services by higher-income groups and a higher use of GP care among lower-income groups. These findings appear to be fairly general and emerge in countries with very diverse characteristics regarding access and provider incentives.

Data Collection↗

Efficiency and administrative costs in primary care.

We use a formal model to examine the implications of endogenous managerial effort for the interpretation and estimation of efficiency in health care organisations. The model is applied to investigate the doubling of the cost of administering primary care in England in real terms between 1989/1990 and 1994/1995. The main cost determinant was the number of general practitioners (GPs), and there were economies of scale but not of scope. Fund-holding had a positive but small effect on administrative costs, so that the recent abolition of fund-holding may do little to reduce primary care administrative costs. After allowing for changes in the numbers of primary care practitioners, the quality of primary care and the extent of fund-holding, most of the increase in costs was unexplained, and may reflect additional but unmeasured increases in the administrative burden associated with the 1990 reforms. There was little variation in relative efficiency across areas.

Cost Allocation↗

Measuring adverse selection in managed health care.

Health plans paid by capitation have an incentive to distort the quality of services they offer to attract profitable and to deter unprofitable enrollees. We characterize plans' rationing as a "shadow price" on access to various areas of care and show how the profit maximizing shadow price depends on the dispersion in health costs, individuals' forecasts of their health costs, the correlation between use in different illness categories, and the risk adjustment system used for payment. These factors are combined in an empirically implementable index that can be used to identify the services that will be most distorted by selection incentives.

Capitation Fee↗

Optimal health insurance: the case of observable, severe illness.

We explore optimal cost-sharing provisions for insurance contracts when individuals have observable, severe diseases with a discrete number of medically appropriate treatment options. Variation in preferences for alternative treatments is unobserved by the insurer and non-contractible. Interest in such situations is increasingly common, exemplified by disease carve-out programs and shared decision-making (SDM) tools. We demonstrate that optimal insurance charges a copay to patients choosing the high-cost treatment and provides consumers of the low-cost treatment a cash payment. A simulation of the effect of such a policy, based on prostate cancer, indicates a substantial reduction in moral hazard.

Cost Sharing↗

Is there a meaningful definition of the value of a statistical life?

A definition of the value of a statistical life is derived. This definition has a meaningful interpretation in terms of the monetary value of expected present value utility if consumption is age-independent. In all other cases, empirical estimates of the value of a statistical life are biased estimators of the monetary counterpart to expected present value utility.

Data Interpretation, Statistical↗

Health insurance and female labor supply in Taiwan.

We examine whether the availability of subsidized health insurance to the non-working population in Taiwan affected the labor force participation of married women. Our empirical identification exploits the fact that such insurance was first made available to wives of government employees, before being made universally available in Taiwan in 1995. We find that the availability of insurance for non-workers was associated with a 4 percentage point decline in labor force participation among married women, with larger declines among women from low income households. Countries considering universal health insurance as in Taiwan should anticipate similar declines in labor force participation.

Employment↗