Can income-based co-payment rates improve disparity? The case of the choice between brand-name and generic drugs.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Higher income population tend to prefer brand-name to generic drugs, which may cause disparity in access to brand-name drugs among income groups. A potential policy that can resolve such disparity is imposing a greater co-payment rate on high-income enrollees. However, the effects of such policy are unknown. We examined how patients' choice between brand-name and generic drugs are affected by the unique income-based co-payment rates in Japan; 10% for general enrollees and 30% for those with high income among the elderly aged 75 and over.

Methods

We drew on cross-sectional price variation among commonly prescribed 311 drugs using health insurance claims data from a large prefecture in Japan between October 2013 and September 2014 to identify between-income-group di

SUBMITTER: Ito Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6824135 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature