How much are the Dutch prepared to pay for mental health care? Nearly every year the content of t... more How much are the Dutch prepared to pay for mental health care? Nearly every year the content of the basic health insurance package alters as a results of new insights and scientific and medical progress. Up till now, the government of the Netherlands has largely ignored the wishes of its people regarding which services should be included in or dropped from the basis health care package.<br/> AIM: To describe a method for measuring the Dutch population's willingness to pay (wtp) for the inclusion of mental health care in the basic health insurance package and, at the same time, to present the first empirical findings obtained by this method.<br/> METHOD: Data were collected in 2013 via a printed questionnaire on which the respondent was asked to declare how much he or she would be prepared to pay for the inclusion of mental health care in the basic health care package. <br/> RESULTS: The average per capita amount that the Dutch were prepared to pay for the inclusion of mental health care was found be € 25.90 per month.<br/> CONCLUSION: The average amount that a Dutch national was prepared to pay for having mental health care included in the basic package was higher that the actual per capita amount paid for mental health care. In 2013 these costs were € 15.80 per capita per month.
The main focus of this paper is the development of an appropriate framework to characterize the p... more The main focus of this paper is the development of an appropriate framework to characterize the process of long-term care utilization by the Dutch elderly. Three broad categories of care services are considered, namely, informal care, formal care at home, and institutional care. The use of these care alternatives is modelled jointly, and stochastic dependence is allowed between the various care options. Special attention is given to the concept of health status and to the potential endogeneity of this variable in the model. We apply a flexible non-parametric method to summarize the multidimensional concept of health status into a limited set of interpretable indices. The model is applied on the Longitudinal Ageing Study Amsterdam (LASA). We find strong effects of health status, gender, socio-economic variables, and prices on the utilization of long-term care services.
ABSTRACT The paper presents an approach which thoroughly assesses the role of early life and cont... more ABSTRACT The paper presents an approach which thoroughly assesses the role of early life and contemporaneous macro-conditions in explaining health at older ages. In particular, we investigate the role of exposure to infectious diseases and economic conditions during infancy and childhood, as well as the effect of current health care facilities. Specific attention is paid to the impact of unobserved heterogeneity, selective attrition and omitted relevant macro-variables. We apply our approach to self-reports on functional limitations of Dutch older individuals. Our analysis is performed using data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam. The prevalence of functional limitations is found to increase in the nineteen-nineties, in part due to restricted access to hospital care.
The paper focuses on changes in the prevalence of disability at older ages in the Netherlands dur... more The paper focuses on changes in the prevalence of disability at older ages in the Netherlands during the nineteen-nineties. Disability is characterized by two self-reported indicators of mild and severe disability and two self-reported and objective measures of functional limitations. Age, period, and cohort (APC) factors are potential determinants of disability at older ages. Understanding the role of APC factors is crucial to get insight into current and future disability trends. To reach this objective, we had to deal with the well-known identification problem -- namely year of birth plus age equals calendar year of measurement. The identification problem is tackled by modeling cohort and period effects using lifetime macro-indicators. This approach -- innovative in analyses on disability trends – also explains mechanisms underlying period and cohort effects. Analyses are conducted using data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam. We produce evidence of increasing trends in functional limitations and disability at all ages above 60 and for both genders. These are largely caused by adverse period effects due to restrictions in acute and home care services. In addition, we find evidence of cohort effects -- mainly because of differences in exposure to tuberculosis mortality in year of birth – on functional status and disability. This holds more specifically for females.
How much are the Dutch prepared to pay for mental health care? Nearly every year the content of t... more How much are the Dutch prepared to pay for mental health care? Nearly every year the content of the basic health insurance package alters as a results of new insights and scientific and medical progress. Up till now, the government of the Netherlands has largely ignored the wishes of its people regarding which services should be included in or dropped from the basis health care package.<br/> AIM: To describe a method for measuring the Dutch population's willingness to pay (wtp) for the inclusion of mental health care in the basic health insurance package and, at the same time, to present the first empirical findings obtained by this method.<br/> METHOD: Data were collected in 2013 via a printed questionnaire on which the respondent was asked to declare how much he or she would be prepared to pay for the inclusion of mental health care in the basic health care package. <br/> RESULTS: The average per capita amount that the Dutch were prepared to pay for the inclusion of mental health care was found be € 25.90 per month.<br/> CONCLUSION: The average amount that a Dutch national was prepared to pay for having mental health care included in the basic package was higher that the actual per capita amount paid for mental health care. In 2013 these costs were € 15.80 per capita per month.
The main focus of this paper is the development of an appropriate framework to characterize the p... more The main focus of this paper is the development of an appropriate framework to characterize the process of long-term care utilization by the Dutch elderly. Three broad categories of care services are considered, namely, informal care, formal care at home, and institutional care. The use of these care alternatives is modelled jointly, and stochastic dependence is allowed between the various care options. Special attention is given to the concept of health status and to the potential endogeneity of this variable in the model. We apply a flexible non-parametric method to summarize the multidimensional concept of health status into a limited set of interpretable indices. The model is applied on the Longitudinal Ageing Study Amsterdam (LASA). We find strong effects of health status, gender, socio-economic variables, and prices on the utilization of long-term care services.
ABSTRACT The paper presents an approach which thoroughly assesses the role of early life and cont... more ABSTRACT The paper presents an approach which thoroughly assesses the role of early life and contemporaneous macro-conditions in explaining health at older ages. In particular, we investigate the role of exposure to infectious diseases and economic conditions during infancy and childhood, as well as the effect of current health care facilities. Specific attention is paid to the impact of unobserved heterogeneity, selective attrition and omitted relevant macro-variables. We apply our approach to self-reports on functional limitations of Dutch older individuals. Our analysis is performed using data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam. The prevalence of functional limitations is found to increase in the nineteen-nineties, in part due to restricted access to hospital care.
The paper focuses on changes in the prevalence of disability at older ages in the Netherlands dur... more The paper focuses on changes in the prevalence of disability at older ages in the Netherlands during the nineteen-nineties. Disability is characterized by two self-reported indicators of mild and severe disability and two self-reported and objective measures of functional limitations. Age, period, and cohort (APC) factors are potential determinants of disability at older ages. Understanding the role of APC factors is crucial to get insight into current and future disability trends. To reach this objective, we had to deal with the well-known identification problem -- namely year of birth plus age equals calendar year of measurement. The identification problem is tackled by modeling cohort and period effects using lifetime macro-indicators. This approach -- innovative in analyses on disability trends – also explains mechanisms underlying period and cohort effects. Analyses are conducted using data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam. We produce evidence of increasing trends in functional limitations and disability at all ages above 60 and for both genders. These are largely caused by adverse period effects due to restrictions in acute and home care services. In addition, we find evidence of cohort effects -- mainly because of differences in exposure to tuberculosis mortality in year of birth – on functional status and disability. This holds more specifically for females.
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