Access to Physician Services: Does Supplemental Insurance Matter? Evidence from France /
Buchmueller, Thomas C.
Access to Physician Services: Does Supplemental Insurance Matter? Evidence from France / Thomas C. Buchmueller, Agnès Couffinhal, Michel Grignon, Marc Perronin. - Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2002. - 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white); - NBER working paper series no. w9238 . - Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w9238. .
September 2002.
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.
System requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Access to Physician Services: Does Supplemental Insurance Matter? Evidence from France / Thomas C. Buchmueller, Agnès Couffinhal, Michel Grignon, Marc Perronin. - Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2002. - 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white); - NBER working paper series no. w9238 . - Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w9238. .
September 2002.
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.
System requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.