TILEC seminar on health care

On 26 October, TILEC devoted its monthly seminar to the issue of health care. Catherine Schaumans (KU Leuven) presented her work on the structural estimation of an entry model for physicians in Belgium. Its objective is to analyze the nature of the interaction between general practitioners and specialists. On the one hand, GPs and specialists could compete for the same set of patients; on the other hand, through the referral process, they may be used a complementary inputs in the production of health care, thus mutually benefiting from one another's presence. Which effect dominates is of importance in order to assess the market impact of mandatory referral schemes (gate-keeping), in place or under study in many countries. Wolf Sauter (Dutch Health Care Authority, NZa, and TILEC) discussed the scope for applying the EU framework for services of general economic interest (SGEI) to the market for curative health care (see TILEC DP 2007-029). Although many issues are not settled in the existing case law, the SGEI regime might provide a useful regime for those hospital services that cannot at present be subjected to full market-based provision- while solidarity-based state provision is not an option, or is no longer desirable.