December 12, 2024

Responses to cost-sharing: Do socio-demographic characteristics matter?

Patient cost-sharing in health insurance tends to reduce moral hazard, but the effect may differ between subgroups. For instance, one may expect low income groups to react more strongly to cost-sharing than high incomes. Using our structural microsimulation model, we estimate the expected response to changes in cost-sharing across gender, age and income groups.
Painkillers and money

We find an average elasticity of −0.11, with significant variation across age groups but minimal differences by income or gender. An increase in cost-sharing causes the largest increase in out-of-pocket expenditure for the elderly.

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