The name is absent




Abstract

The percentage of Australians taking up Private Health Insurance (PHI) was in decline
following the introduction of Medicare in 1984 (PHIAC). To arrest this decline the
Australian Government introduced a suite of policies, between 1997 and 2000, to create
incentives for Australians to purchase private health insurance. These policies include an
increased Medicare levy for those without PHI on high incomes, introduced in 1997, a
30% rebate for private hospital cover (introduced 1998), and the Lifetime Health Cover
(LHC) policy where PHI premiums are set at age of entry, increasing for each year older
than 30 years (introduced 2000). In 2004 the longitudinal study on Household Income
and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA), included a series of questions on private
health insurance and hospital use. We used the HILDA data to investigate the
demographic, health and income factors related to the PHI decisions, especially around
the introduction of the Lifetime Health Cover policy. Specifically we investigate who was
most influenced to purchase PHI (specifically hospital cover) in 2000 as a response to the
Lifetime Health Cover policy deadline. Are those who have joined PHI since the
introduction of LHC different from those who joined prior to LHC? What are the
characteristics of those who have dropped PHI since the introduction of LHC? We model
the PHI outcomes allowing for heterogeneity of choice and correlation across
alternatives. After controlling for other factors, we find that LHC prompted moderately
well-off working age adults (30-49 yrs) to purchase before the 2000 deadline. Young
singles or couples with no children, and the overseas born were more likely to purchase
since 2000, while the relatively less well-off continue to drop PHI in spite of current
policy incentives.



More intriguing information

1. CHANGING PRICES, CHANGING CIGARETTE CONSUMPTION
2. Comparison of Optimal Control Solutions in a Labor Market Model
3. Business Cycle Dynamics of a New Keynesian Overlapping Generations Model with Progressive Income Taxation
4. The name is absent
5. Life is an Adventure! An agent-based reconciliation of narrative and scientific worldviews
6. Density Estimation and Combination under Model Ambiguity
7. Getting the practical teaching element right: A guide for literacy, numeracy and ESOL teacher educators
8. THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: COMPUTER USE, BASIC SKILLS AND EMPLOYMENT
9. The name is absent
10. A dynamic approach to the tendency of industries to cluster
11. The quick and the dead: when reaction beats intention
12. The name is absent
13. Word searches: on the use of verbal and non-verbal resources during classroom talk
14. MICROWORLDS BASED ON LINEAR EQUATION SYSTEMS: A NEW APPROACH TO COMPLEX PROBLEM SOLVING AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
15. The economic doctrines in the wine trade and wine production sectors: the case of Bastiat and the Port wine sector: 1850-1908
16. Knowledge and Learning in Complex Urban Renewal Projects; Towards a Process Design
17. The Tangible Contribution of R&D Spending Foreign-Owned Plants to a Host Region: a Plant Level Study of the Irish Manufacturing Sector (1980-1996)
18. Non-farm businesses local economic integration level: the case of six Portuguese small and medium-sized Markettowns• - a sector approach
19. Parallel and overlapping Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Hepatitis B and C virus Infections among pregnant women in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria
20. Are Japanese bureaucrats politically stronger than farmers?: The political economy of Japan's rice set-aside program