Working Paper: NBER ID: w9238
Authors: Thomas C. Buchmueller; Agnes Couffinhal; Michel Grignon; Marc Perronnin
Abstract: In France, public health insurance is universal but incomplete, with private payments accounting for roughly 25 percent of all spending. As a result, most people have supplemental private health insurance. We investigate the effects of such insurance on the utilization of physician services using data from the 1998 Enquˆte Sant‚ Protection Sociale, a nationally representative survey of the French population. Our results indicate that insurance has a strong and significant effect on the utilization of physician services. Individuals with supplemental coverage have substantially more physician visits than those without. In a context where patients are free to choose their provider, we find no evidence that adults with supplemental insurance are more likely to visit a specialist than a general practitioner.
Keywords: health insurance; physician services; France; utilization; moral hazard
JEL Codes: I11; I18
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| individuals with greater expected medical care use (I11) | purchase of supplemental insurance (G52) |
| supplemental health insurance (I13) | utilization of physician services (I11) |
| moral hazard (G52) | utilization of physician services (I11) |
| supplemental health insurance (I13) | probability of having a physician visit (I11) |
| health status variables (I12) | supplemental health insurance (I13) |