Title: The willingness to pay for medical care: evidence from two developing countries.

POPLINE Document Number: 109041

Author(s):

Gertler P
van der Gaag J

Source citation:

Baltimore, Maryland, Johns Hospital University Press, 1990. ix, 139 p.

Abstract:

This book considers issues surrounding payment for health care in developing countries. The first chapter introduces the work. Chapter 2 illustrates the importance of health care to the development process and the functions of health production. This chapter also considers the main arguments used to justify government intervention in the health care sector in developing and industrialized countries; categorizes medical care as curative, patient-related preventive, and non-patient-related preventive; and discusses the role of price in the health care market. In the third chapter, case studies from the Ivory Coast and Peru are used to show that charging user fees for medical care is a desirable and feasible alternative to government financing. The larger picture of health and health care in West Africa and Latin America is also examined. Chapter 4 presents options in health care financing and describes the welfare analysis of health care demand. Chapter 5 uses evidence from the literature to create a behavioral model of the demand for health care and the resulting empirical specifications. Empirical results for rural Ivory Coast and rural Peru are presented in the sixth chapter, and their implications for policy are demonstrated in Chapter 7 through simulations of the consequences of various pricing policies. The final chapter contains suggestions for future research and for policy implementation. This chapter contains suggestions for governments to introduce user fees while still protecting the poor from adverse effects. The four most important empirical findings of the study are that 1) the demand for medical care is price sensitive, 2) the poor are more price sensitive than the rich, 3) care for children is more price elastic than care for adults, and 4) if the price of one provider increases, patients are more likely to turn to another provider than to self-care.

Keywords:

Cote d'Ivoire
Peru
Developing Countries
Theoretical Studies
Health
Health Services
Fees
Financing, Government
Economic Policy
Economic Development
Social Development
Delivery of Health Care
Policy Development
Africa, Western
Africa South of the Sahara
Africa
South America, Western
South America
Latin America
Americas
Financial Activities
Economic Factors
Policy
Planning
Organization and Administration

Population Reports information:

Topic: paying for family planning