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Presentation

Session: Equity
Room: Main Hall
Time: Thu 10:15-11:30

Presenter: Mohammad Hajizadeh (School of Economics and Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health (ACERH). University of Queensland)

Abstract

This paper uses five National Health Surveys (NHS) data in order to measure deviations from horizontal equity (equal health care for equal need) over time in Australia. We measure horizontal inequity in health care utilization using five time points over the period from 1983 to 2005. Six measures of health care service utilisation are employed: hospital admissions, general practitioner visits, specialist visits, dentist visits, any visit to a medical practitioner (physician visits), and ambulatory care visits. Indirect standardization is used to generate horizontal inequity indices in two ways: (i) with only health care need indicators (e.g. self-reported health status or health conditions, age and gender) and (ii) with health care need indicators plus other socioeconomic variables (e.g. income, education, region of residence, employment status, English ability, and health insurance). The results of our study suggest that the distribution of hospital services and GP services in Australia were generally pro-poor whereas the distribution of specialist visits, dentist visits and any ambulatory visits were pro-rich. Irrespective of which standardization approach is adopted, the computed indexes for all health services demonstrates that the introduction of publicly funded health insurance, Medicare, in 1984 had a pro-poor effect on the utilization of health care services-with the exception of hospital admissions. In contrast to this, the implementation of Private Health Insurance Incentives Scheme (PHIIS) policies in 1997 to 2000 has had a pro-rich effect on the distribution of health care utilisation in recent years.

Key Terms

Horizontal inequity, Health care utilization, Health care reforms, Australia

Authors:

Mohammad Hajizadeh (School of Economics and Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health (ACERH). Univesity of Queensland) , Luke Connelly (School of Economics and Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health (ACERH). University of Queensland) and James Butler (Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health (ACERH). Australian National University)

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