Public insurance substituting for private insurance: new evidence regarding public hospitals, uncompensated care funds, and Medicaid

This paper examines the impact of public health insurance programs, whether structured as subsidies to health care providers (public hospitals and uncompensated care reimbursement funds) or as direct insurance (Medicaid), on the purchase of private health insurance. The presence of a public hospital is associated with a lower likelihood of private insurance for those with incomes between 100-200% and 200-400% of the poverty level. Uncompensated care reimbursement funds were associated with less purchase of private health insurance and a higher likelihood of being uninsured across all income groups. More generous Medicaid programs showed both safety-net and crowd out effects.     

Affording what's free and paying for choice: comparing the cost of public and private hospitalizations in urban Kerala

OBJECTIVE: To assess the cost of public and private hospitalizations in urban Kerala and discuss policy implications of social disparities in the economic burden of hospital care. METHODS: The NSSO survey on health care (1995-1996) for urban Kerala was analysed with regards to expenditure incurred by hospital episodes. Multilevel linear models were built to assess factors associated with levels of health expenditure. FINDINGS: Hospital care involves paying admission fees in 68% of cases of hospitalizations (98% in private and 20% in public sector) in urban Kerala. Poor households and those headed by casual workers show significantly lower levels of health expenditure and a higher proportion of health-related loss of income than other social groups. Although there is significant expenditure in both sectors for these groups, hospitalization on free public wards is associated with lower expenditure than other options. Factors linked with higher expenditure are: duration of stay; hospitalizations on paying public wards and in the private sector; hospitalizations for above poverty line households and hospitalizations for chronic illnesses. Expenditure for services bought from outside the hospital is important in the public sector. CONCLUSION: Hospitalization incurs significant expenditure in urban Kerala. Greater availability of free medical services in the public sector and financial protection against the cost of hospitalization are warranted.     

Cost sharing, supplementary insurance, and health services utilization among the Medicare elderly.

This paper investigates the extent to which private supplementary insurance and Medicaid, which vitiate the effect of Medicare cost-sharing, encourage elderly beneficiaries to seek additional medical care. A multivariate model of health services utilization is estimated with the Tobit technique, using the 1976 Health Interview Survey. We find that either private or public supplementation induces greater use of hospital and physician services, though in amounts that vary considerably according to health status. The paper closes with observations on cost savings brought about by Medicare cost-sharing and some implications for equity among beneficiaries.     

Out-of-pocket health expenditure differences in Chile: Insurance performance or selection?

Chile has a mixed health system with public and private actors engaged in provision and insurance. This dual system generates important differences in health expenditure between private and public insurances. Selection is a preeminent feature of the Chilean insurance system. In order to explain the role of the insurance in out-of-pocket expenditures between households for different insurance schemes, decomposition methods are applied to disentangle the effect of household ‘composition and insurance’ degree of financial protection on health expenditures. Health expenditure patterns have not changed in the last 10 years with drugs, outpatient care, and dental health representing 60% of the health expenditure. Health expenditure/income is similar for different income groups in the public insurance, but decreases with income in households with private coverage, reflecting regressivity in health expenditure. On the other hand, health expenditure as share of expenditure increases with income for both groups.Per capita health expenditure in households with private coverage is four times the expenditure of households with public insurance; this gap is mostly explained by differences in households’ expenditure and demographics. Roughly 80% of the difference in expenditure is explained by the model, showing the role of selection in understanding the expenditure gap between insurance schemes.     

The effect of Health Savings Accounts on group health insurance coverage

This paper presents new empirical evidence on the impact of tax subsidies for Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) on group insurance coverage. HSAs are tax-free health care expenditure savings accounts. Coupled with high deductible health insurance plans (HDHPs), they together represent new health insurance options. The tax advantage of HSAs expands the group health insurance market by making health care more affordable. Using individual level data from the Current Population Survey and exploiting policy variation by state and year from 2004 to 2012, I find that HSA tax subsidies increase small-group coverage by a statistically significant 2.5 percentage points, although not coverage in larger firms. Moreover, if the tax price of HSA contribution decreases by 10 cents, small-group insurance coverage increases by almost 2 percentage points. I also find that for older workers or less-educated workers, HSA subsidies are associated with 2–3 percentage point increase in their group insurance coverage.     

Unwinding the State subsidisation of private health insurance in Ireland

Ireland's private health insurance market provides primarily supplementary health insurance for hospital services, operating alongside a public hospital system to which residents have universal access entitlements, subject to some copayments for those without a medical card. The State subsidises the purchase of private health insurance through measures including tax relief on premiums and not charging the full economic cost for private beds in public hospitals. Furthermore, privately insured patients occupying public beds in public hospitals did not, until 2014, incur charges for such accommodation, apart from modest statutory charges. In the Budget in October 2013, a number of measures were announced that began to unwind these subsidies. Although it was initially feared that these measures would add to premium inflation, leading in turn to further discontinuation of health insurance, the evidence suggests that premium inflation has eased and take-up has stabilised, although some of this may have been due to the introduction of lifetime community rating in May 2015. Nevertheless, it would appear that the restriction on the subsidisation of private health insurance has not had a significant adverse effect on the market, while it has reduced an inequitable cross-subsidy.     

Cancer treatment at home or in the hospital: what are the costs for French public health insurance? Findings of a comprehensive-cancer centre

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to evaluate the cost of home-cancer-healthcare programs and their potential interest for public health insurance as compared to inpatient cancer care. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The study was conducted at the Centre Leon Berard (CLB), a comprehensive cancer centre in Lyon, France. Hospitals at home patients were monitored by nurses and oncologists from the CLB. All patients, who received home treatment over a 15-day period in 2001, were included in the study. Patients were broken down into groups according to the type of healthcare required and the corresponding impact on health insurance expenditure. For each of these patients, a fictive-hospital stay was then reconstructed, which corresponded to the inpatient hospital care that would have been required during the observation period, had hospital at home not been available. RESULTS: The average cost of hospital at home was significantly lower than the corresponding estimated cost for treatment at the hospital (776.6 versus 2012.5, P < 0.001). This difference was particularly high for patients in the "palliative care" group (N = 33) (1201.7 versus 3489.7, P < 0.001), whereas in the "chemotherapy" group, results were not significantly different (N = 34) (225.5 versus 318). CONCLUSION: Our study suggests that hospitalisation alternatives can generate substantial savings for public health insurance in France.     

The impact of changes in private health expenditure on New Zealand households

The proportion of New Zealand's total health expenditure financed by the public sector has fallen from 87% in 1983/84 to 77% in 1997/98 in real per capita terms. In the paper, we firstly describe changes in private health expenditure in New Zealand and compare these changes with trends in private and public health expenditure in a number of OECD countries. Secondly, we find that in New Zealand, there have been increases in both out-of-pocket payments and membership of private health insurance funds over the period from 1983/84 to 1997/98. We analyze the relationship between out-of-pocket expenditure, insurance expenditure, and household income across income deciles and across time. We find that out-of-pocket payments are regressive but the regressivity did decline in 1993/94 in response to a government initiative to improve the targeting of government subsidies towards lower income households.     

Elasticity estimates from a dynamic model of interrelated demands for private and public acute health care

This paper investigates the private/public mix in acute health care provision in the UK. It uses an interrelated shares model derived from a translog function combined with dynamic adjustment. Using prices for public care constructed from NHS waiting lists, the insurance cost of private care and the retain price index, impact, intermediate and long run elasticities of demand for private and public care are obtained. The role of hospital consultants and of an aging population are also considered.     

Health care insurance for Africa

Long-term substantial development aid has not prevented many African countries from being caught in a vicious circle in health care: the demand for care is high, but the overburdened public supply of low quality care is not aligned with this demand. The majority of Africans therefore pay for health care in cash, an expensive and least solidarity-based option. This article describes an innovative approach whereby supply and demand of health care can be better aligned, health care can be seen as a value chain and health insurance serves as the overarching mechanism. Providing premium subsidies for patients who seek health care through private, collective African health insurance schemes stimulates the demand side. The supply of care improves by investing in medical knowledge, administrative systems and health care infrastructure. This initiative comes from the Health Insurance Fund, a unique collaboration of public and private sectors. In 2006 the Fund received Euro 100 million from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to implement insurance programmes in Africa. PharmAccess Foundation is the Fund's implementing partner and presents its first experiences in Africa.     

Reform follows failure: I. Unregulated private care in Lebanon

This first of two papers on the health sector in Lebanon describes how unregulated development of private care quickly led to a crisis situation. Following the civil war the health care sector in Lebanon is characterized by (i) ambulatory care provided by private practitioners working as individual entrepreneurs, and, to a small extent, by NGO health centres; and (ii) by a fast increase in hi-tech private hospitals. The latter is fuelled by unregulated purchase of hospital care by the Ministry of Health and public insurance schemes. Health expenditure and financing patterns are described. The position of the public sector in this context is analyzed. In Lebanon unregulated private care has resulted in major inefficiencies, distortion of the health care system, the creation of a culture that is oriented to secondary care and technology, and a non-sustainable cost explosion. Between 1991 and 1995 this led to a financing and organizational crisis that is the background for growing pressure for reform.     

Government subsidies for dental care in Australia

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the impact of recent changes in public subsidies for oral health care in Australia, and to propose more effective and equitable uses of Commonwealth Government subsidies. METHODS: Review of literature and Australian Research Centre for Population Oral Health information. RESULTS: Commonwealth subsidies for oral health care services in Australia have been moved from public dental services to private dental health insurance. This has resulted in a redistribution of funds from people on low incomes with poor oral health, to people on middle to high incomes with relatively better oral health. CONCLUSIONS: Public funding for dental care in Australia favours the financially and orally better off at the expense of disadvantaged and orally unhealthy Australians. Current approaches to public funding for oral health services in Australia are unlikely to result in a substantial improvement in oral health. IMPLICATIONS: Maximum gains in oral health are likely to be achieved by a reorientation of Commonwealth subsidies towards preventive and basic treatment services. This reorientation needs to occur within a primary health care framework. Whereas the Commonwealth plays a national leadership role in the provision of general health services, this is not apparent in relation to oral health. This lack of leadership leaves many vulnerable Australians without basic preventive services and at high risk of losing teeth that might otherwise have been preserved. Channelling the funding now used to subsidise private dental services for the well off and dentally healthy to community-wide and targeted preventive services for vulnerable and low-income Australians would have a larger impact on oral health and represent a more equitable use of these funds.     

Private medicine and the privatisation of health care in South Africa

Health services in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) are provided by a mixture of public and private providers and institutions. Estimates of total health-related expenditure for 1985 range between 5.3% and 5.9% of gross national product (GNP), divided on approximately a 55:45 basis between public and private sectors. Basic preventive and curative services are provided by a hospital- and clinic-based public system. The public system does not adequately serve the rural areas and African tribal bantustans, and racial discrimination and/or segregation are obvious in its organisation and funding. The public sector's strength is the provision of state-subsidised care to many citizens who are unable to afford private medicine. The vast majority of hospitals are operated on a non-profit basis by government, industries, and voluntary agencies. Excluding hospitals that receive state subsidies, private investor-owned hospitals control about 10% of all hospital beds in the RSA. One-third of these investor-owned beds are held by state-dependent contractors providing long-term care. Two-thirds are wholly independent. Growth has been rapid in the independent hospital sector, and major corporations have entered the market. In 1985, over 85% of the white population was privately insured by a variety of prepayment programmes, including those organised through parastatal corporations and government departments. Despite major enrollment growth in the preceding decade, only 8% of blacks held private insurance by 1985; their coverage also tended to be less comprehensive. Faced with deficit financing, a sluggish economy, complaints from its white constituency about taxation levels, and pressure from private sector interest groups, the Nationalist government has endorsed the concept of privatisation of health care. Exponents of privatisation claim that it will permit differentiation by income to supplant discrimination by race. However, the direct links between disposable income and race, the rapidly rising costs of private insurance, and the still-limited extent of private coverage among the black majority, indicate that privatisation is likely to co-opt a comparatively small proportion of the total black population. It may exacerbate the urban-rural imbalance in health status and health services, promote growth of hospital-intensive curative services rather than needed expansion of community-centred preventive and primary care, and create financial barriers to access for low-income patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

Elderly people with cognitive impairment: costing possible changes in the balance of care

The objective of this paper is to investigate the service needs and support costs of elderly people with cognitive impairment on hospital and community health services, primary health care, social services, and informal carers in England. It examines the resource consequences of major changes in the provision of care, exploring the implications for both cost and effectiveness. The study was designed to provide a secondary analysis of the OPCS disability surveys in order to estimate the balance of care, and current provision of services. It also estimates of costs of present provision and potential policy options. Results show large scale improvements in the provision of care for people living in private households and local authority homes require significant increases in funding, but reductions in the provision of long-stay hospital beds can significantly reduce the cost burden to the public purse. Given the increasing demand pressure on health and social care expenditure, it seems unlikely that large scale improvements in the care supplied to elderly people with cognitive impairment can be achieved without some change in the balance of care. The cost of implementing improvements in care for the 200000 people living in private households and the 45000 people in local authority homes could be offset by reducing the provision of costly long stay hospital provision with alternative institutional care such as NHS nursing homes.     

Health insurance and health services utilization in Ireland

The numbers buying private health insurance in Ireland have continued to grow, despite a broadening in entitlement to public care. About 40% of the population now have insurance, although everyone has entitlement to public hospital care. In this paper, we examine in detail the growth in insurance coverage and the factors underlying the demand for insurance. Attitudinal responses reveal the importance of perceptions about waiting times for public care, as well as some concerns about the quality of that care. Individual characteristics, such as education, age, gender, marital status, family composition and income all influence the probability of purchasing private insurance. We also examine the relationship between insurance and utilization of hospital in-patient services. The positive effect of private insurance appears less than that of entitlement to full free health care from the state, although the latter is means-tested, and may partly represent health status.     

The role of private insurance in public health care systems: conceptual framework and policies

The structure of the health care system ans specifically the type and amount of the public and private mix is not a closed issue. This article provides and update of the arguments that justify public intervention in health, and emphasizes the failures of the private insurance market that call for mandatory universal health insurance, although that does not necessarily mean that state has to be the insurer.The relationship between both sectors and the variables determining the relative level of expenditure in both are also analyzed. Following the literature on the public provision of private goods, the level of expenditure in a democracy is seen to depend on the preferences of the median voter, where private insurance usually tops up public insurance. The key variable determining the decision to buy additional private insurance is the difference in quality, defined broadly, between both sectors.Concerning policies, the appropriateness of fiscal incentives to promote the uptake of private insurance is discussed and it is concluded that there is no clear evidence of its suitability. Also, it is argued that models in which the public and private sectors appear totally segregated or totally integrated are preferable to intermediate models, in which both sectors appear combined. Medical coverage bought by an informed agent in exchange for a capitation payment seems a better way to integrate the private sector than through a system of vouchers.     

公立医院改革的操作建议

公立医院改革的重点是控制医疗费用和规范诊疗行为,让患者真正得到实惠。公立医院改革目前面临的主要问题是现行治理结构难以实现有效管理,医疗费用支付方式难以有效控制医疗费用,医保资金在控制医疗费用、规范医疗行为上的作用没有得到很好的发挥,高值耗材和药品费用在医疗总费用中仍占较大比重。本文认为公立医院改革应从四方面进行实质性操作,即改革治理结构,实行管办分开;改革支付方式,落实临床路径;发挥保障基金经济杠杆作用,实施分级医疗;实行药品及耗材统一招标采购,落实医药分开。     

Thirty years of national health insurance in South Korea: lessons for achieving universal health care coverage

South Korea introduced mandatory social health insurance forindustrial workers in large corporations in 1977, and extendedit incrementally to the self-employed until it covered the entirepopulation in 1989. Thirty years of national health insurancein Korea can provide valuable lessons on key issues in healthcare financing policy which now face many low- and middle-incomecountries aiming to achieve universal health care coverage,such as: tax versus social health insurance; population andbenefit coverage; single scheme versus multiple schemes; purchasingand provider payment method; and the role of politics and politicalcommitment. National health insurance in Korea has been successfulin mobilizing resources for health care, rapidly extending populationcoverage, effectively pooling public and private resources topurchase health care for the entire population, and containinghealth care expenditure. However, there are also challengesposed by the dominance of private providers paid by fee-for-service,the rapid aging of the population, and the public-private mixrelated to private health insurance.     

Private health expenditure in the Greek health care system: Where truth ends and the myth begins

Greece today has the most “privatized” health care system among EU countries. Given the country's universal coverage by a public system this may be called “the Greek paradox”. The Objective of this paper is to analyze private health payments by provider and type of service in order to bring to light the reasons for and the nature of the extraordinary private expenditure in Greece. Methods: We used a randomized countrywide sample of 1616 households. Regression analysis was used to determine the extent to which social and economic household characteristics influence the frequency of use of certain health services and the size of household payments for such services. In all statistical analyses we used the p < 0.05 level of significance. Results: Out of the total private household health expenditure (€6141 million), 66% is for outpatient services, with the largest share for dental services, absorbing 31.1% (€1912 million or 1.5% of GDP) of the total out-of-pocket health expenditure. Rural dwellers seek private outpatient care more often, because of the understaffed public primary facilities. The hospital sector absorbs less than 15% (or €884 million) of household private health expenditure. A significant part (20%) of hospital care financed privately concerns informal payments within public hospitals, an amount almost equal with formal payments in the form of cost sharing. Admissions to private hospitals are only 16% of total admissions. Our results indicate that this is a result of the political emphasis in public hospitals and of the considerably high cost of private hospital care. Conclusions: The rise in private health expenditure and the development of the private sector during the last 20 years in Greece is associated with public under financing. The gap was filled by the private sector through increased investment, mostly in upgraded amenities and new technology. Today, the complementary nature of private care in Greece is no longer disputed, but is a matter of serious concern, as it undermines the constitutionally guaranteed free access and equitable distribution of health resources.     

THE DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH CARE EXPENDITURE TOWARD THE END OF LIFE: EVIDENCE FROM TAIWAN

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between the health care expenditure of end‐of‐life patients and hospital characteristics in Taiwan where (i) hospitals of different ownership differ in their financial incentives; (ii) patients are free to choose their providers; and (iii) health care services are paid for by a single public payer on a fee‐for‐services basis with a global budget cap. Utilizing insurance claims for 11 863 individuals who died during 2005–2007, we trace their hospital expenditures over the last 24 months of their lives. We find that end‐of‐life patients who are treated by private hospitals in general are associated with higher inpatient expenditures than those treated by public hospitals, while there is no significant difference in days of hospital stay. This finding is consistent with the difference in financial incentives between public and private hospitals in Taiwan. Nevertheless, we also find that the public–private differences vary across accreditation levels. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.