Do people with private health insurance attach a higher value to health and healthcare than those without?

A recent study undertaken by Dr Anna Hobbins, Postdoctoral researcher at CÚRAM, the SFI Research Centre for Medical Devices, led by Professor Ciaran O’Neill from the Center for Public Health at Queens University Belfast, together with colleagues from NUI Galway, the Office of Health Economics in London and Axentiva Solutions in Spain, suggests that there is no meaningful difference in how people value health, whether they have private health insurance or not while other studies have shown it to significantly impact on whether and how people use the healthcare system in Ireland.

“Differences in health service use between people with and without health insurance have been observed in Ireland with respect to preventive, primary and tertiary healthcare services and this is a major source of concern for policy-makers” explains Dr Hobbins. “We wanted to find out whether the differences in how people with and without health insurance use the healthcare system relates to a difference in the value they assign to their health.”