The impact of standardized disease-specific healthcare coverage

Felipe Menares and Pablo Muñoz

Journal of Public Economics, 2025, vol. 242, issue C

Abstract: We study the impact of a healthcare reform that standardized procedures and timely coverage of a set of diseases. Using Chile’s universe of death records and a difference-in-differences research design, we show that mortality from the diseases covered by this reform decreased by 4.4% on average. Disease-specific shocks or a resource shift from non-covered to covered diseases do not explain this effect. Evidence from polytraumatized inpatients suggests that the reform equalized utilization rates as it reduced the dispersion of risk-adjusted surgery rates and spending across hospitals.

Keywords: Insurance; Mortality; Health policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I13 I14 I15 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:242:y:2025:i:c:s0047272725000106

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2025.105312

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