Does Abolishing a Copayment Increase Doctor Visits? : A Comparative Case Study
Haaga, T., Böckerman, P., Kortelainen, M., & Tukiainen, J. (2024). Does Abolishing a Copayment Increase Doctor Visits? : A Comparative Case Study. B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, 2(1), 187-204. https://doi.org/10.1515/bejeap-2023-0056
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B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and PolicyDate
2024Access restrictions
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© 2024 de Gruyter
Insurance coverage increases health care consumption, but less is known whether moderate copayments affect adults’ primary care utilization in a system characterized by gatekeeping. We analyze whether abolishing a 14-euro copayment for visits to general practitioners (GP) in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, increased the number of GP visits among adults and especially among low-income individuals. Using a difference-in-differences (DD) design and combining several administrative registers from 2011 to 2014, we find that the abolition is associated with only a small increase in GP visits (+0.04 visits annually, or +4.4 %, for all adults). The increase is driven by low-income adults (+0.06 visits, or +4.5 %, at the bottom 40 %). Although the point estimates are rather robustly positive, the conclusions regarding the statistical significance are sensitive to how we account for clustering in a setting characterized by only one treated cluster and a finite number of comparison clusters.
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https://converis.jyu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/194864471
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This work is supported by Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation (research grant No. 20197209) and by the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.License
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