Demand for Private and State-Provided Health Insurance in the 1910s: Evidence from California

This paper analyzes the demand for both private and state-provided health insurance in a historical context. In the case of private health insurance, I show that both health insurance and medical care were of limited use and that the relationship between income and health insurance and income and medical care was relatively weak, suggesting that money could buy little in the way of improvements in medical care. These results implied that there should be very little demand for state-provided health insurance and indeed there was not. Although the persuasiveness of interest groups such as doctors and to a lesser extend trade unions did contribute to the defeat of state-provided health insurance matter, none of the variables could explain such a resounding defeat. Evidence from newspaper editorials, advertisements, and articles suggested that the absence of consumer demand for health insurance together with concerns over the cost of state-provided health insurance defeated the measure. My findings are in contrast to those of other researchers who have emphasized the role of a politically powerful medical profession and of World War I.