Publication:
Understanding household healthcare expenditure can promote health policy reform

dc.contributor.authorBest, R.
dc.contributor.authorTuncay Alpanda, Berna
dc.contributor.departmentEconomics
dc.contributor.ozuauthorALPANDA, Berna Tuncay
dc.date.accessioned2024-01-23T08:56:30Z
dc.date.available2024-01-23T08:56:30Z
dc.date.issued2023
dc.description.abstractStudies of health care expenditure often exclude explanatory variables measuring wealth, despite the intuitive importance and policy relevance. We use the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey to assess impacts of income and wealth on health expenditure. We investigate four different dependent variables related to health expenditure and use three main methodological approaches. These approaches include a first difference model and introduction of a lagged dependent variable into a cross-sectional context. The key findings include that wealth tends to be more important than income in identifying variation in health expenditure. This applies for health variables which are not directly linked to means testing, such as spending on health practitioners and for being unable to afford required medical treatment. In contrast, the paper includes no evidence of different impacts of income and wealth on spending on medicines, prescriptions or pharmaceuticals. The results motivate two novel policy innovations. One is the introduction of an asset test for determining rebate eligibility for private health insurance. The second is greater focus on asset testing, rather than income tests, for a wide range of general welfare payments that can be used for health expenditure. Australia's world-leading use of means testing can provide a test case for many countries.en_US
dc.description.versionPublisher versionen_US
dc.identifier.doi10.1017/S1744133123000129en_US
dc.identifier.issn1744-1331en_US
dc.identifier.scopus2-s2.0-85169068856
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10679/9059
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1017/S1744133123000129
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.peerreviewedyesen_US
dc.publicationstatusPublisheden_US
dc.publisherCambridge University Pressen_US
dc.relation.ispartofHealth Economics, Policy and Law
dc.relation.publicationcategoryInternational Refereed Journal
dc.rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subject.keywordsFinancial assetsen_US
dc.subject.keywordsHealth expenditureen_US
dc.subject.keywordsHealth policyen_US
dc.subject.keywordsIncomeen_US
dc.subject.keywordsMeans testingen_US
dc.subject.keywordsPrivate health insuranceen_US
dc.subject.keywordsWealthen_US
dc.titleUnderstanding household healthcare expenditure can promote health policy reformen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
dspace.entity.typePublication
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication2afe80e3-623c-4807-a57e-2ce75845ccea
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication.latestForDiscovery2afe80e3-623c-4807-a57e-2ce75845ccea

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