2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
he effect of 2006 Long-term Care Insurance Amendment on Cost Containment: an empirical evidence from nationally representative claims data
Project/Area Number |
17H07182
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Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
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Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
Research Field |
Public finance/Public economy
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Research Institution | Waseda University |
Principal Investigator |
FU RONG 早稲田大学, 政治経済学術院, 助教 (70805259)
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Project Period (FY) |
2017-08-25 – 2019-03-31
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Keywords | Long-term Care Insurance / Moral Hazard |
Outline of Final Research Achievements |
We evaluate the presence and magnitude of moral hazard in Japan’s public long-term care insurance (LTCI) market. Using monthly LTCI claim records from January 2006 to December 2015 linked to concurrent death records, we construct a sample by propensity score matching insured individuals who copay 10% of their fees to those with no required copayments, and we implement fixed-effect estimations. We find that a ten-percentage-point reduction in the copayment rate increases monthly costs by 10.2 thousand yen, corresponding to a price elasticity of about -0.1. Insured individuals with no copayments tend to use more services and have more utilization days than those with copayments do.
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Free Research Field |
Health Economics
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Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements |
Fiscal sustainability is the greatest concern faced by Japan's LTCI. We verify the possibility of cost-sharing adjustments as one solution. Our findings may have broad implications for the rapidly aging world by providing valuable evidence for governments planning to launch public LTCI.
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