The Role of Consumer Knowledge of Insurance Benefits in the Demand for Preventative Health

Steve Parente (), David Salkever () and Joan DaVanzo

No 9912, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In 1992, the United States Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) introduced new insurance coverage for two preventive services influenza vaccinations and mammograms. Economists typically assume transactions occur with perfect information and foresight. As a test of the value of information, we estimate the effect of consumer knowledge of these benefits on their demand. Treating knowledge as endogenous in a two-part model of demand, we find that consumer knowledge has a substantial positive effect on the use of preventive services. Our findings suggest that strategies to educate the insured Medicare population about coverage of preventive services may have substantial social value.

JEL-codes: I1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-ias
Note: EH
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published as Stephen T. Parente & David S. Salkever & Joan DaVanzo, 2005. "The role of consumer knowledge of insurance benefits in the demand for preventive health care among the elderly," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(1), pages 25-38.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w9912.pdf (application/pdf)

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:nbr:nberwo:9912

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w9912

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().