Econometric Studies on Demand and Supply for Health and Long Term Care Services

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The objectives of this research are, first, to examine how consumers (demand side) and providers (supply side) of medical services would change their behaviors corresponding to the policy reforms, namely, increase of copayment rate or change of copayment scheme for the elderly from fixed to proportional copayment, or to financial support for the elderly to reduce copayment, and second, to see how the computer-intensive econometric methods, namely, bootstrap, quantile regression nonparametric regression, are to be applied for empirical researches with a reseputo (insurance claim from a clinic or hospital to a insurer) data set. In 2002, I analyzed a dental reseputo data set and a reseputos of the insured for two periods of before-seventy and of after-seventy years with hurdle negative binomial (NB) model, zero-inflated NB model, quantile regression and nonparametric regression models. In 2003, I estimated a cost function of the insurers of the National Health Insurance based on municipalities with their financial data to check the hypothesis that the more the financial support comes from the central government the less the cost-efficiency is. I also investigate who spends how much for medical services among family members with family-based aggregated reseputo data and find that family members share health risk but only dependents bear income risk caused by head's illness. In 2003, I study whether or not the current family-based premium is substantially disadvantageous for a single household and if so how it is to be rationalized. I also examine how physicians employed in hospitals change their treatment intensities after proportional copayment is introduced for the elderly health care system.