Seminar: Beneficial Health Insurance and healthcare utilization: new evidence from a large-scale field experiment

In this paper we experimentally evaluate the effect of beneficial health insurance and cost-sharing on healthcare expenditures. National legislation in Belgium obliged all health insurers to contact a low-income target population to apply for beneficial health insurance. The randomized timing of sending a letter and flyer provides an instrument to evaluate the effect of beneficial health insurance on healthcare consumption. We find limited evidence for consumptive responses to IR. In addition, IR beneficiaries do not spend significantly less on healthcare because of an existing maximum dollar expenditure threshold for the entire population.