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.