Moral hazard or realised access to care? Empirical observations in Hong Kong.

We examined for the presence of moral hazard among those covered by medical benefits or insurance schemes, whether provided for by employers or privately purchased and stratified by health care provider sector in Hong Kong. Data for this study were derived from the 2002 Thematic Household Survey, covering 24,610 non-institutional residents aged 15 and over, representing 5,353,666 persons after applying population weights. Zero-inflated Poisson or negative binomial models were constructed to examine the association between predisposing, need and enabling factors with inpatient and outpatient utilisation patterns as per Andersen's health behavioural framework. Individuals with insurance or medical benefits were more likely to have been ever admitted in the previous year but did not incur more bed-days. Similarly, those who were covered by insurance or medical benefits had a higher probability of ever visiting a doctor in the previous month but not consuming more episodes. These findings were consistent across the public and private sectors. We propose that our observations mostly reflected realised access that met genuine health need rather than inappropriate overuse of services. A supply-driven public sector and high out-of-pocket co-payments for private services likely explained these findings.