 Doctor-Visit Co-Payment Exemption for Children: First Look at the DataCzech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), 2010, vol. 60, issue 1, 58-72 Abstract: This paper uses the abolition of children’s doctor-visit co-payments effective since April 2009 as a natural experiment to estimate the effect of those co-payments on the number of doctor visits made by children. As the policy change involved only children, we are able to use the adult part of the population as a control group in a difference-in-difference estimation. The paper approximates the number of doctor visits by consumption of prescription drugs, as visiting a doctor is the only way to obtain a prescription. Using three different pre-reform periods (January, February, and March 2009) and two post-reform periods (April and May 2009) the estimates reveal no overall effect of doctor-visit co-payments on the number of children’s doctor visits. Less convincingly and more tentatively, the estimates suggest a strategic shift of children’s doctor visits away from the last pre-reform toward the first post-reform month. Keywords: doctor visit co-payments; children; difference-in-difference (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:fau:fauart:v:60:y:2010:i:1:p:58-72 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver) from Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences Contact information at EDIRC. |
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