ABSTRACT We examine patient socioeconomic status, the strength of the patient–doctor relationship and local area competition as determinants of the quality and price of GP services. We exploit a large‐sample patient data set in Australia and its linkage to administrative databases. The...

Besley, Hall and Preston (JPubEc, 1999) investigate how waiting for medical treatment in public hospitals influences the decision to buy private health insurance, which covers faster private treatment. They find sizable positive impacts which have subsequently been influential on waiting lists...

Explaining individual, regional, and provider variation in health care spending is of enormous value to policymakers, but is often hampered by the lack of individual level detail in universal public health systems because budgeted spending is often not attributable to specific individuals. Even...

One of the core goals of a universal health care system is to eliminate discrimination on the basis of socioeconomic status.  We test for discrimination using patient waiting times for non-emergency treatment in public hospitals.  Waiting time should reflect patients' clinical need with...

One of the core goals of a universal health care system is to eliminate discrimi- nation on the basis of socioeconomic status. We test for discrimination using patient waiting times for non-emergency treatment in public hospitals. Waiting time should re ect patients' clinical need with priority...

In a market where insurers are not allowed to risk rate, we find evidence of advantageous selection using observed health expenditure risk. Selection is driven by income and optimism about the future. This may explain insurers’ profitability, despite community rating.

Access to elective surgery in Australian public hospitals is rationed using waiting lists. In this paper we undertake a DiNardo-Fortin-Lemieux reweighting approach to attribute variation in waiting time to clinical need or to discrimination. Using data from NSW public patients in 2004-2005, we...

One of the core goals of a universal health care system is to eliminate discrimination on the basis of socioeconomic status. We test for discrimination using patient waiting times for non-emergency treatment in public hospitals. Waiting time should reflect patients clinical need with priority...