Webex-seminar: The impact of co-payments for nursing home care on use, health and welfare

Nursing home residents often have to pay substantial costs out-of-pocket. We assess the impact of co-payments, leveraging a reform in the Netherlands. We find that an increase in co-payments induced users to postpone permanent residential care. The resulting savings were only partially offset by increases in home care. There were no overall effects on mortality or on the outcomes of children. While the change in the marginal price of care was modest, average payments increased much more. This led to an additional reduction in public spending, but also increased financial risk for potential users considerably.