The Effects Of Cost-Sharing In Health Care: What Do We Know From Empirical Evidence?

Vincenzo Carrieri

Economia politica, 2010, issue 2, 351-374

Abstract: Political and academic debate about cost-sharing in health care is becoming very popular because of the massive health care expenditure growth. In this paper, we aim to validate the use of cost-sharing in health care by assessing the effects that different policies of cost-sharing have produced around the world. We review, then, several empirical papers dealing with cost-sharing effects with respect to three main issues: moral hazard-contrast, redistributive effects and health care cost-containment. The findings of empirical literature indicate that the use of cost-sharing in health care gives rise to the classical political economy trade-off between equity and efficiency. However, while distributive effects are demonstrated, gains in terms of efficiency and cost containment are not clearly verified by empirical literature; thus, cost sharing policies seem to be desirable only when combined with mechanisms that promote access to the most vulnerable categories.

Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mul:jb33yl:doi:10.1428/32543:y:2010:i:2:p:351-374

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