TY  - JOUR
AU  - Smart,Michael
AU  - Stabile,Mark
TI  - Tax Credits and the Use of Medical Care
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9855
PY  - 2003
Y2  - July 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9855
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9855.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Mark Stabile
School of Public Policy and Governance
University of Toronto
Canadiana Building, 3rd Floor
14 Queen's Park Cres. W.
Toronto, ON M5S 3K9
CANADA
Tel: 416/978-4329
Fax: 416/978-5079
E-Mail: mark.stabile@utoronto.ca
AB  - Several recent proposals have advocated using the income tax system to collect user fees to help fund the health care system. While there is a considerable amount of research investigating both how individuals respond to tax incentives for employer provided health insurance and on the effects of user fees payable at the point of service on the use of health care services, there is limited evidence on how individuals respond to tax incentives when these are not realized until taxes are paid. This paper uses existing exemptions in the Canadian tax code that allow individuals to deduct the cost of health care or health insurance from their taxable income in order to identify the tax price elasticity of demand for health care when price changes are realized at the end of the tax year. Our results suggest that despite not realizing the tax benefit at the time of purchase, individuals are quite responsive to changes in the tax price of health care. Our elasticity estimates for a wide range of health care products are well within the range of traditional price elasticity estimates, including in particular our estimates for prescription drugs. We also find some evidence that suggests individuals trade off risk sharing through traditional insurance companies with risk sharing through the tax code. That is, as the tax price of health care decreases, individuals spend more on health care, but spend less on health insurance.
ER  -