The demand for private health care in the UK

Policy change has eroded the entitlement of UK residents to free state-prov ided health care, with a resulting rise in the use of the private sector. T his paper examines the choice between public and private health care. It mo dels the use of private health care as a function of its costs and benefits relative to state care and no care. The results indicate a difference betw een users of private care and other care, and the importance of past use as a predictor of current use. But they also show considerable movement betwe en the public and private sectors, indicating a complex relationship in pub lic and private sector use. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reser ved. JEL classification: I1; H4.