@techreport{Schmitz2008optional,
abstract = {Deductibles in health insurance are often regarded as a means to contain health care costs when individuals exhibit moral hazard. However, in the absence of moral hazard, voluntarily chosen deductibles may instead lead to self-selection into different insurance contracts. We use a set of new variables in the German Socioeconomic Panel for the years 2002, 2004, and 2006 that measure individual health more accurately and include risk-attitudes towards health in order to determine the price elasticity of demand for health care. A latent class approach that takes into account the panel structure of the data reveals that the effect of deductibles on the number of doctor visits is negligible. Private add-on insurance increases the number of doctor visits. However, altogether the effects of the insurance state on the demand for doctor visits are small in magnitude.},
address = {Essen},
author = {Hendrik Schmitz},
copyright = {http://www.econstor.eu/dspace/Nutzungsbedingungen},
isbn = {978-3-86788-081-7},
keywords = {I11; I18; G22; 330; Health insurance; deductibles; add-on insurance; count data; latent class panel model; \"{A}rzte; Patienten; Nachfrage; Gesetzliche Krankenversicherung; Selbstbeteiligung (Versicherung); Private Krankenversicherung; Konsumentenverhalten; Sch\"{a}tzung; Deutschland},
language = {eng},
number = {76},
publisher = {RWI},
title = {Do optional deductibles reduce the number of doctor visits?: empirical evidence with German dat},
type = {Ruhr economic papers},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10419/26842},
year = {2008}
}

