We study the effects of 'balance billing', i.e., allowing physicians to charge a fee from patients in addition to the fee paid by Medicare. First, we show that on pure efficiency grounds the optimal Medicare fee under balance billing is zero. An active Medicare policy thus can only be justified...

We study the effects of balance billing, i.e., allowing physicians to charge a fee from patients in addition to the fee paid by Medicare. First, we show that on pure efficiency grounds the optimal Medicare fee under balance billing is zero. An active Medicare policy thus can only be justified...

Health economists have studied the determinants of the expected value of health status as a function of medical and non-medical inputs, often finding small marginal effects of the former. However, medical inputs may have an additional benefit in the form of a reduced variability of health...

Background: This contribution seeks to measure preferences for health insurance in Germany and the Netherlands, using two Discrete Choice Experiments (DCE). Since the Dutch DCE was carried out right after the 2006 health reform, which made citizens explicitly choose a health insurance contract,...

For optimal solutions in health care, decision makers inevitably must evaluate trade-offs, which call for multiattribute valuation methods. Researchers have proposed using best-worst scaling (BWS) methods which seek to extract information from respondents by asking them to identify the best and...

Best-worst scaling (BWS), also known as maximum-difference scaling, is a multiattribute approach to measuring preferences. BWS aims at the analysis of preferences regarding a set of attributes, their levels or alternatives. It is a stated-preference method based on the assumption that...

Health economists have studied the determinants of the expected value of health status as a function of medical and non-medical inputs, often finding small marginal effects of the former. However, medical inputs may have an additional benefit in the form of a reduced variability of health...

Recent healthcare reforms have sought to increase efficiency by introducing managed care (MC) while respecting consumer preferences by admitting choice between MC and conventional care. This article proposes an institutional change designed to let German consumers choose between the two settings...