Contents

About the Author
Acknowledgements
Executive summary
Introduction

Health care reform
Medical savings accounts: affecting the demand for health care
In this Critical Issues Bulletin

The basics

Health insurance
Traditional forms of cost sharing
Deficiencies with traditional forms of cost sharing
Medical Savings Accounts

The empirical evidence

Estimates of the welfare loss of health insurance
Cost sharing, MSAs and the use of medical services
Potential adverse effects: MSAs, health outcomes and the poor

Policy recommendation: a Canadian MSA experiment
Notes
References

Critical Issues Bulletins are published from time to time by The Fraser Institute (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) as supplements to Fraser Forum, the Institute's monthly periodical. Critical Issues Bulletins are comprehensive studies of single issues of critical importance for public policy.

The author has worked independently and opinions expressed by him are, therefore, his own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the members or the trustees of The Fraser Institute.

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Copyright(C) 1998 by The Fraser Institute
Date of Issue: May 1998
Printed in Canada

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ISSN 1480-3666

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