Rationale: The Italian National Health Service (INHS) provides cares according to universalistic principles based on uniform standards of quality. In such a contest private health insurance (PHI) should provide some added value to find an adequate market space. At present there is a large debate...

In recent years, the accreditation of private hospitals followed by the decentralisation of the Italian NHS into 21 regional health systems, has furnished a good empirical ground for investigating the "voting with their feet" Tiebout principle. We consider the competition between public and...