 Reductions in out-of-pocket prices and forward-looking moral hazard in health care demandNaimi Johansson, Sonja C. de New, Johannes Kunz, Dennis Petrie and Mikael Svensson Journal of Health Economics, 2023, vol. 87, issue C Abstract: Little is known about how patients dynamically respond to a forthcoming reduction in health care out-of-pocket prices. Using a kinked Donut Regression Discontinuity design with kinks entering and exiting the donut, we evaluate a Swedish cost-sharing policy, where primary care out-of-pocket prices were eliminated at age 85. We find evidence of forward-looking moral hazard with older adults delaying primary care visits up to four months before the out-of-pocket elimination and shifting these visits until shortly after. These health care delays are driven by non-urgent care: non-physician visits, planned visits and follow up visits. We find no evidence of severe negative health effects in the short-term as a result of the delay. Contrary to our finding of forward-looking behavior with respect to out-of-pocket prices, we do not find evidence of typical moral hazard, as we do not find a persistent increase in primary health care use after the copayment elimination. Keywords: Demand for health care; Out-of-pocket prices; Moral hazard; Older adults; Donut regression discontinuity; Forward-looking behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:87:y:2023:i:c:s0167629622001242 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2022.102710 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Health Economics is currently edited by J. P. Newhouse, A. J. Culyer, R. Frank, K. Claxton and T. McGuire More articles in Journal of Health Economics from Elsevier |
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