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3. Financial variables included individual, partners and household wages,
benefits and financial assets, attitudes to financial risk and self-assessed
prosperity.

4. Retrospective life events in the 12 months prior to 2001 included self-report of
financial improvement or worsening, losing a job, being promoted, changing
jobs, retiring, marriage, separation, reconciliation, becoming pregnant, a new
baby, injury or illness for self or family.

5. Prospective changes in the 12 months from 2001 to 2002 included personal
and household income and financial assets, changes in disability/illness and
SF-36 self-assessed health.

In the analysis we used the balanced panel of respondents aged 18 years and over who
had complete data for the relevant variables in Wave1 to Wave 4. There were 13,191
respondents 18 years and over in Wave 1 of HILDA. The balanced panel aged 18
years and over from Waves 1 to 4 comprised 9,377 respondents, 98% of whom
answered the self-completion questionnaire in Wave1. Eight respondents did not
answer the questions on private health insurance in Wave 4. This gave a final sample
of 9,196. Half of the sample (49.6%) held private hospital insurance in 2004. A
further 336 (3.6%) held ancillary cover only. A quarter of respondents (25.7%) had
never held any private hospital cover. The private health insurance choice (hospital
cover only) categories used in the analysis are shown in Table 1.

TABLE 1 NEAR HERE

The majority of respondents who had dropped private hospital cover by 2004 had
done so 8 or more years ago (1779 of 2281). Of those who had dropped private
hospital cover after 2000, half (219 of 424) had done so less than 2 years ago. A
summary of the characteristics of the total sample and each choice category is shown
in Table 2.

TABLE 2 NEAR HERE

Respondents with private hospital cover in 2004 were more likely in 2001 to have
tertiary qualifications, to be living in a major city, to be a non-smoker and have higher
average wages than those without insurance. A greater proportion of those who took
up hospital cover in response to LHC policy were couples with children, compared to
the other groups. Those who joined private hospital cover after 2000 had a marked
increase in household wages from 2001 to 2002. In contrast those who dropped
private hospital cover after 2000 had a marked decrease in household wages from
2001 to 2002.

3. Modelling strategy

In order to examine the explanatory variables on PHI choice, assume that each
individual has an unobserved utility associated with each of six discrete outcomes.
Individuals then choose the alternative with the highest utility.

With a linear random utility model this implies:

(1) Uj = x1+ εj; j = 1,..,6



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