Estimating the effect of symbolic copayments in health care in Czech Republic

This research paper estimates the effect of introducing symbolic fees, into otherwise a free health care system, on medical consumption. Namely, the number of adult patient visits to general practitioners is followed. The estimation takes advantage of differing approaches in the fourteen different regions and employs the difference in difference design using some of the regions as a control group. It is found, that copayments seem to increase the number of visits to the general practitioners. This is assigned to a behavioral “entitlement effect”.