Rationing in health care provision: a welfare approach

Laura Levaggi () and Rosella Levaggi
Additional contact information
Laura Levaggi: Free University of Bolzano-Bozen

International Journal of Health Economics and Management, 2017, vol. 17, issue 2, No 6, 235-249

Abstract: Abstract We study the welfare properties of direct restrictions based on cost-effectiveness and indirect methods represented by waiting lists in a public health care system. Health care is supplied for free by the public health sector, but patients can choose to address their demand elsewhere by stipulating a private health care insurance policy to avoid restrictions. Our model shows that if the individual response to treatment is independent of income and cannot be observed by the patient, the choice of opting out simply depends on income, and the redistributive effects of both instruments are quite similar. In general, restrictions may only improve welfare of relatively rich individuals, usually those that opt out of the public health care system. From a policy point of view, our model casts serious doubts upon the use of these instruments for redistributive purposes.

Keywords: Waiting lists; Explicit restrictions; Welfare analysis; Redistribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H51 I11 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10754-016-9209-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:ijhcfe:v:17:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s10754-016-9209-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... th/journal/10754/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10754-016-9209-1

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Health Economics and Management is currently edited by Leemore Dafny, Robert Town, Mark Pauly, David Dranove and Pedro Pita Barros

More articles in International Journal of Health Economics and Management from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().