Dissatisfaction with a country’s health care system leads to higher private expenditure
In this week’s infographics, we look at private expenditure and satisfaction with health care services within countries. Is there a link?
Using OECD data, we ran regressions correlating the percentage of countries’ health care expenditure that is private against levels of satisfaction with health care services in that country, across 42 countries. We ran two regressions, one for 2010 and one for 2020. Both showed negative correlations: higher levels of satisfaction with health care services was associated with lower private expenditure (as a percentage of total expenditure) in both 2010 and 2020 (though there are undoubtedly other factors at play here).
The regression for 2010 showed a relatively weak relationship. The coefficient for [% expenditure private] as a predictor for [satisfaction] was just under -0.6, meaning an increase of one percentage point in private expenditure was associated with a 0.6 percentage point drop in satisfaction. The r-squared value was 0.203, meaning about 20% of the variance in [satisfaction] was accounted for by [% expenditure private]. This was not quite statistically significant.
The regression for 2020 appears to show a stronger relationship. The coefficient for [% expenditure private] as a predictor for [satisfaction] was -1.11, meaning an increase of one percentage point in private expenditure was associated with a 1.11 percentage point drop in satisfaction. The r-squared value was 0.306, meaning about 31% of the variance in [satisfaction] was accounted for by [% expenditure private]. This is statistically significant.
Is dissatisfaction with health care systems driving people to go private, or does greater spending on private health care make people more dissatisfied?
To answer this, we regressed satisfaction in 2010 against private expenditure in 2020, and regressed private expenditure in 2010 against satisfaction in 2020. The former gave a much stronger (negative) correlation (r-squared around 24%) than the latter (r-squared around 10%), suggesting that it is dissatisfaction with (public) health care systems which causes higher levels of private expenditure.
To confirm this, we also regressed satisfaction in 2010 against the percentage change in private (absolute) expenditure between 2010 and 2020. There was indeed a (weak) negative association: countries that had lower levels of satisfaction in 2010 were more likely to have seen significant increases in private expenditure by 2020 (there were multiple lower-satisfaction countries where it more than doubled in absolute terms).
We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Martin De Benito Gellner or call 0207 183 3779.
