The Impact of the Eligibility Threshold of a French Means‐Tested Health Insurance Programme on Doctor Visits: A Regression Discontinuity Analysis
研究法国按收入门槛确定资格的免费补充医疗保险（CMUC）对就诊次数的影响，发现整体上无显著效应，但30岁以下成年人中，有资格者看专科医生次数更多。
This paper assesses the impact of eligibility for a free means-tested complementary health insurance plan, called Couverture Maladie Universelle Complémentaire (CMUC), on doctor visits. We use information on the selection rule to qualify for the plan to identify the effect of eligibility and adopt a regression discontinuity approach. Our sample consists of low-income individuals enrolled in the Health Insurance Fund and recipients of social benefits from the Family Allowance Fund of an urban area in Northern France. Our findings do not show significant impacts of the CMUC threshold on the number of doctor visits within the full sample. Among the subsample of adults under 30 years old, however, eligible individuals are more likely to see a specialist and have, on average, significantly more specialist visits than non-eligible individuals. This specific impact of the CMUC cut-off point among young adults may be explained by the fact that young adults are less likely to be covered by a complementary health insurance plan when they are not recipients of the CMUC plan. © 2017 The Authors. Health Economics Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.