Objectives Although there is a comprehensive public health insurance system in Belgium, out-of-pocket expenditures can be very high, mainly for inpatients. While a large part of the official price is reimbursed, patients are confronted with increased extra billing (supplements). Therefore, the...

We compare two approaches to measuring inequity in the health distribution. The first is the concentration index. The second is the calculation of the inequality in an overall measure of individual well-being, capturing both the income and health dimensions. We introduce the concept of...

Given two linear regression models y1=X1[beta]1+u1 and y2=X2[beta]2+u2 where the response vectors y1 and y2 are unobservable but the sum y=y1+y2 is observable, we study the problem of decomposing y into components and , intended to be close to y1 and y2, respectively. We develop a theory of best...

Direct and indirect standardization procedures aim at comparing differences in health or in health care expenditures between subgroups of the population after controlling for observable morbidity differences. There is a close analogy between this problem and the issue of risk adjustment in...