The Medicare Safety Net and its impact on moral hazard, equity and welfare

Funding: 2017: $160,000
2018: $125,000
2019: $156,500

Project Member(s): Hall, J., Van Gool, K.

Funding or Partner Organisation: Australian Research Council (ARC Discovery Projects)

Start year: 2017

Summary: This project aims to measure the welfare implications of social health insurance reforms. It will use the introduction of the Extended Medicare Safety Net to examine the effect of social insurance reforms on the efficiency and equity of Australia's health care system. The project expects to produce evidence on the partial and aggregate effects of the Medicare Safety Net and knowledge on the relationship between social insurance and health system performance. In doing so, the research seeks to help policy makers to improve the design of social health insurance programmes to make the system more sustainable and equitable.

Publications:

Yu, S, van Gool, K, Hall, J & Fiebig, DG 2019, 'Physician pricing behavior: Evidence from an Australian experiment', Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, vol. 161, pp. 20-34.
View/Download from: Publisher's site

Abiona, O, Van Gool, K, Hall, J, Haywood, P, Yu, S & Fiebig, D 1970, 'Provider Responses to Insurance Benefit Restrictions: The Case of Ophthalmology', Emerging Health Policy Conference, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney.

Van Gool, K, Abiona, O, Hall, J, Haywood, P & Fiebig, DG 1970, 'Provider Responses to Insurance Benefit Restrictions: The Case of Ophthalmology', iHEA 2019 Congress: New Heights in Health Economics, Basel, Switzerland.

Fiebig, D, Van Gool, K, Hall, J & Yu, S 1970, 'Provider moral hazard and insurance eligibility: The case of Australia’s Medicare safety net program [Conference Presentation]', iHEA Boston World Congress, Boston, USA.

FOR Codes: Health Policy Economic Outcomes, Health Policy Evaluation, Health Economics, Health economics , Evaluation of health and support services not elsewhere classified

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.