Health care reform and the number of doctor visits - An econometric analysis

This paper evaluates the German health care reform of 1997, using the individual number of doctor visits as outcome measure and data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for the years 1995-1999. A number of modified count data models allow us to estimate the effect of the reform in different parts of the distribution. The overall effect of the reform was a 10% reduction in the number of doctor visits. The effect was much larger in the lower part of the distribution than in the upper part. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.