IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v10y2001i2p135-145.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Health insurance and health services utilization in Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Colm Harmon
  • Brian Nolan

Abstract

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. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Colm Harmon & Brian Nolan, 2001. "Health insurance and health services utilization in Ireland," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(2), pages 135-145, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:10:y:2001:i:2:p:135-145
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.565
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.565
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.565?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Holly, Alberto & Gardiol, Lucien & Domenighetti, Gianfranco & Brigitte Bisig, 1998. "An econometric model of health care utilization and health insurance in Switzerland," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 513-522, May.
    2. Besley, Timothy & Hall, John & Preston, Ian, 1998. "Private and public health insurance in the UK," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 491-497, May.
    3. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre & Durand, Franck & Geoffard, Pierre-Yves, 1998. "Moral hazard and the demand for physician services: First lessons from a French natural experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 499-511, May.
    4. A. C. Cameron & P. K. Trivedi & Frank Milne & J. Piggott, 1988. "A Microeconometric Model of the Demand for Health Care and Health Insurance in Australia," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 55(1), pages 85-106.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Aida Isabel Tavares & Inês Marques, 2021. "Multi-layer health insurance coverage, medical services use and health in a Universal National Health System, the case of Portugal," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 22(1), pages 141-153, February.
    2. Lucien Gardiol & Pierre-Yves Geoffard & Chantal Grandchamp, 2005. "Separating selection and incentive effects in health insurance," PSE Working Papers halshs-00590713, HAL.
    3. Bolhaar, Jonneke & Lindeboom, Maarten & van der Klaauw, Bas, 2012. "A dynamic analysis of the demand for health insurance and health care," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 669-690.
    4. Dardanoni, Valentino & Li Donni, Paolo, 2012. "Incentive and selection effects of Medigap insurance on inpatient care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 457-470.
    5. Matthew Jowett & Anil Deolalikar & Peter Martinsson, 2004. "Health insurance and treatment seeking behaviour: evidence from a low‐income country," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(9), pages 845-857, September.
    6. Ricardo Henriquez Hofter, 2006. "Private health insurance and utilization of health services in Chile," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(4), pages 423-439.
    7. Nolan, Anne & Nolan, Brian, 2004. "A Panel Data Analysis of The Utilisation of GP Services in Ireland: 1995-2001," Papers HRBWP13, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    8. Barros, Pedro Pita & Machado, Matilde P. & Sanz-de-Galdeano, Anna, 2008. "Moral hazard and the demand for health services: A matching estimator approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 1006-1025, July.
    9. Nolan, Anne & Nolan, Brian, 2003. "A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the Utilisation of GP Services in Ireland: 1987-2001," Papers HRBWP01, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    10. Layte, Richard & Nolan, Anne & McGee, Hannah & O'Hanlon, Ann, 2009. "Do consultation charges deter general practitioner use among older people? A natural experiment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1432-1438, April.
    11. Astrid Kiil, 2012. "Does employment-based private health insurance increase the use of covered health care services? A matching estimator approach," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-38, March.
    12. Astrid Kiil & Jacob Nielsen Arendt, 2017. "The effect of complementary private health insurance on the use of health care services," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 1-27, March.
    13. Omar Paccagnella & Vincenzo Rebba & Guglielmo Weber, 2013. "VOLUNTARY PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE AMONG THE OVER 50s IN EUROPE," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(3), pages 289-315, March.
    14. Andreas Million & Regina T. Riphahn & Achim Wambach, 2003. "Incentive effects in the demand for health care: a bivariate panel count data estimation," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(4), pages 387-405.
    15. Ángel Marcos Vera‐Hernández, 1999. "Duplicate coverage and demand for health care. The case of Catalonia," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(7), pages 579-598, November.
    16. Vincenzo Atella & Alberto Holly & Alessandro Mistretta, 2016. "Disentangling Adverse Selection, Moral Hazard and Supply Induced Demand: An Empirical Analysis of The Demand For Healthcare Services," CEIS Research Paper 389, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 31 Oct 2018.
    17. Hyojoung Kim & Doyoung Kim & Subin Im & James W. Hardin, 2009. "Evidence of Asymmetric Information in the Automobile Insurance Market: Dichotomous Versus Multinomial Measurement of Insurance Coverage," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 76(2), pages 343-366, June.
    18. Trottmann, Maria & Zweifel, Peter & Beck, Konstantin, 2012. "Supply-side and demand-side cost sharing in deregulated social health insurance: Which is more effective?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 231-242.
    19. Partha Deb & Chenghui Li & Pravin K. Trivedi & David M. Zimmer, 2006. "The effect of managed care on use of health care services: results from two contemporaneous household surveys," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(7), pages 743-760, July.
    20. Daniele Fabbri & Chiara Monfardini, 2016. "Opt Out or Top Up? Voluntary Health Care Insurance and the Public vs. Private Substitution," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(1), pages 75-93, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:10:y:2001:i:2:p:135-145. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.