Supplementary private health insurance and health care utilization of people aged 50+

Does supplementary private health insurance (PHI) coverage influence health care utilization in countries where the coverage ratio with public health insurance is high? I estimate this effect using the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. Handling the potential endogeneity of supplementary insurance coverage and the large fraction of zero observations in the utilization models influences the empirical results. I show that the effect of PHI coverage on inpatient and outpatient care utilization is not trivial even in countries with generous public health funding. The main finding is that supplementary PHI coverage increases dental care utilization, but decreases the visits to general practitioners. Private insurance is estimated to have little and insignificant influence on the utilization of inpatient care and outpatient specialist care. The magnitude of the effect of supplementary PHI on health care utilization varies with the characteristics of the health care systems. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014